MASOLINO DA PANICALE, mii-sti le nu pfi'ne-kiVIA, properly TOMMASO DI CRISTO FANDO DI FINI (1383-1447). A Florentine paint er of the earl• Renaissance. lie was born at I'anieale di Valdese. As a youth he became an assistant to Lorenzo Ghiberti, who was at that time engaged in making the first set of bronze doors for the Baptistery of Florence. The actual rendering in relief of the pictorial c•onrposi tion of Ghiberti gave to Masolino a certain mas tery of imagery and surety of technique that determined the character of his art method. Gherardo da Stamina, a Florentine painter of whom little is known, gave him his first instrne don in painting. It is possible that Vasm•i. in his biography, may have confounded Masolino with Masaceio or di Cristoforo Bracc•i—the names of all of these contemporaries being eon ruptions of Tommaso. The arguments are not suflieiently convincing to withdraw from Nlaso lino the paintings hitherto assigned to him in the Braneaeei Chapel, Florence, upon which his fame is chiefly founded. These frescoes were un dertaken shortly after his admission into the guild of the Physicians and Apotheearie's in 1423, and received his continued attention until his departure for Hungary in 1426, where he flourished under the patronage of Filippo Seolari.
In 1428 he was at work in the Church of Castig lione di Olona representing incidents in the life of the Virgin, Saint Stephen, and Saint Law rence. The Nativity of the series is especially interesting, bearing the inscription, "Masolinus de Florentia in the baptistery of the church he frescoed scenes from the life of John the Baptist. In these Castiglione works there is exhibited the same naturalistie. almost human istic tendency that characterized the Braneaeei frescoes. Dr. Burc•khardt has attributed to Maso lino the frescoes in one of the chapels of the Cluireb of San Clemente, Rome. Alasolino died at Flor ence in October, 1147. His work at the hest was that. of an experimenter—one dissatisfied with ex isting methods and groping after a more advanced technique. In his extreme eagerness to hold the mirror to nature he emphasized the unit at the expense of the whole—his excessive study of de tail overshadowed breadth and homogeneity, ele ments dependent upon rational composition.