Masaccio, who lived from 1401 to 1428, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. Because few of his works survive, I was eager to see his famous frescoes here in the Brancacci chapel in Florence in 1994. Masaccio is famous for being the first painter, with the possible exception of Giotto, to paint the human figure as three dimensional, using perspective and placing his figures in proper proportion to their surroundings. His innovative work had a strong influence on other painters despite his brief career. Seeing these frescoes was a high point of our Italian vacation.
