Masaccio

Beautifully illustrated and written by an eminent scholar, tracing the life, works and fortunes of Masaccio. The latest important chapter in the prestigious “Great Books on Art” series.

Because of the brevity of his life, cut short prematurely at only twenty-seven, Masaccio left us a small number of works, but of such originality as to make him the most revolutionary painter of his time. His desecrating and irreverent realism, though appreciated later to the point of making the Brancacci Chapel an indispensable place of study for future generations, must not have been fully understood by a society that certainly preferred the graceful, diaphanous figures of Masolino or the fantasy world of Gentile da Fabriano.

In addition to taking stock of the studies devoted to the painter from San Giovanni Valdarno, the monograph will be enriched by the fruit of new historical and documentary research on the stylistic interpretation of the paintings, their more precise chronological placement and patronage. The investigations, conducted in the State Archives of Florence and Pisa, will make it possible to relocate Masaccio and his works in their historical, political, social and economic context, in the Florence characterized by exceptional patronage, both public and private, that would change the face of the city.

Edited by.

Alessandro Cecchi – art historian, has served in the Superintendency of Siena and the Uffizi Gallery, and was director of the Boboli Garden and the Palatine Gallery and Royal Apartments of the Pitti Palace. He is the author of essays and studies on Florentine art of the 15th and 16th centuries, in the fields of artistic patronage, painting, drawing and applied arts. He has also collaborated on the catalogs of numerous prestigious exhibitions, and is the curator of recent exhibitions devoted to Giorgio Vasari, Jacopo Ligozzi, Filippino Lippi and Sandro Botticelli, among others.