Cappella Brancacci
In the Brancacci (bran-KAH-chee) Chapel, Masaccio created a world in paint that looked like the world we inhabit. For the first time in a thousand years, Man and Nature were frozen for inspection. Masaccio’s painting techniques were copied by many Renaissance artists, and his people—sturdy, intelligent, and dignified, with expressions of understated astonishment—helped shape Renaissance men and women’s own self-images.
(See “Oltrarno, South of the Arno River” map, here.)
Cost: €6, cash only, covered by Firenze Card.
Hours: Mon and Wed-Sat 10:00-17:00, Sun 13:00-17:00, closed Tue, last entry 30 minutes before closing.
Reservations: Reserving an entry time is required (and free), but on weekdays and any day off-season, it’s often possible to walk right in and get an entry time, especially if you come before 15:30. Officially, reservation times begin every 20 minutes, with a maximum of 30 visitors per time slot (you have 20 minutes inside the chapel). But when it’s not too busy, they generally let people come and go at will and stay as long as they like. If you want to find out beforehand if there’s a long line, you can call ahead to the ticket desk (tel. 055-284-361).
Firenze Card users don’t need a reservation at all and can walk in whenever they like.
To reserve in advance, call the chapel a day ahead (tel. 055-276-8224 or 055-276-8558, English spoken, call center open Mon-Sat 9:30-13:00 & 14:00-17:00, Sun 9:30-12:30). If the line is busy, keep trying; it’s best to call in the afternoon. You can also try via email—info.museoragazzi@comune.fi.it.
Dress Code: Modest dress (covered shoulders and knees—a scarf will do) is requested when visiting the church and chapel (if it’s very hot, they might be lenient—but better not to chance it).
Getting There: The Brancacci Chapel is in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, on Piazza del Carmine, in the Oltrarno neighborhood south of the Arno River. It’s about a 20-minute walk or short taxi ride (about €11) from downtown Florence. From Ponte Vecchio, cross to the Oltrarno side, turn right on Borgo San Jacopo, walk 10 minutes, then turn left into Piazza del Carmine. (
See the previous Oltrarno Walk chapter for a nice walking route.)
Getting In: The chapel is accessible only through the paid entrance to the right of the church.
Information: Tel. 055-284-361, www.museicivicifiorentini.it.
Film: Your ticket includes a 20-minute film in English on the chapel, the frescoes, and Renaissance Florence. The film’s computer animation brings the paintings to 3-D life—they appear to move—while narration describes the events depicted in the panels. The film takes liberties with the art, but it’s visually interesting and your best way to see the frescoes close up.
Audioguide: A good videoguide describes the frescoes (€1, leave ID as deposit). You’re allowed to keep it for 25 minutes. I’d view most of it in the courtyard—then you can maximize your time face to face with the art inside. I’d skip the videoguide if the film (described earlier) is showing.
Length of This Tour: Allow 30 minutes (plus 30 minutes if you see the film or rent the videoguide).
Photography: Allowed without a flash.
Starring: Masaccio, Masolino, and Filippino Lippi.
Nearby Eateries: For restaurants south of the Arno, see here.
(See “Brancacci Chapel” map, here.)
The chapel has frescoes that tell the story of Peter—half are by Masaccio and half by either Masolino or Filippino Lippi (the son of Filippo Lippi). Although Masaccio is the star, the panels by his colleagues are interesting and provide a good contrast in styles. Masaccio’s works are sprinkled among the others, mostly on the left and center walls.
The panels are displayed roughly in the order they were painted, from upper left to lower right—the upper six by Masaccio and Masolino (1424-1425), the lower ones by Masaccio (1426-1427) and Filippino Lippi (1481-1485).
It’s best to read this chapter before you enter, because if it’s busy, you’ll have only 20 minutes in the chapel.
• Start with the left wall, the small panel in the upper left.
Renaissance man and woman—as nude as they can be—turn their backs on the skinny, unrealistic, medieval Gate of Paradise and take their first step as mortal humans in the real world. For the first time in a thousand years of painting, these figures cast a realistic shadow, seemingly lit by the same light we are—the natural light through the Brancacci Chapel’s window.
Eve wails from deep within. (The first time I saw her, I thought Eve’s gaping mouth was way over the top, until I later saw the very same expression on someone dealing with a brother’s death.) Adam buries his face in shame. These simple human gestures speak louder than the heavy-handed religious symbols of medieval art.
• Compare Masaccio’s Adam and Eve with the one on the opposite wall, by his colleague Masolino.
Masolino’s elegant, innocent First Couple float in an ethereal Garden of Eden with no clear foreground or background (Eve hugs a tree or she’d float away). Their bodies are lit evenly by a pristine, all-encompassing, morning-in-springtime light that casts no shadows. Satan and Eve share the same face—a motif later Renaissance artists would copy.
In 1424, Masolino da Panicale (1383-1435) was hired by the Brancacci family to decorate this chapel with the story of Peter (beginning with the Original Sin that Peter’s “Good News” saves man from). Masolino, a 40-year-old contractor with too many other commitments, invited 23-year-old Masaccio (1401-1428) to help him. The two set up scaffolding and worked side by side—the older, workmanlike master and the younger, intuitive genius—in a harmonious collaboration. They just divvied up the panels, never (or rarely) working together on the same scene.
• Return to the left wall, upper level. From here, we’ll work clockwise around the chapel. After Adam and Eve, the second panel is...
The tax collector (in red miniskirt, with his back to us) tells Jesus that he must pay a temple tax. Jesus gestures to say, “OK, but the money’s over there.” Peter, his right-hand man (gray hair and beard, brown robe), says, “Yeah, over there.” Peter goes over there to the lake (left side of panel), takes off his robe, stoops down at an odd angle, and miraculously pulls a coin from the mouth of a fish. He puts his robe back on (right side of panel) and pays the man.
Some consider this the first modern painting, placing real humans in a real setting, seen from a single viewpoint—ours. Earlier painters had done far more detailed landscapes than Masaccio’s sketchy mountains, lake, trees, clouds, and buildings, but they never fixed where the viewer was in relation to these things.
Masaccio tells us exactly where we stand—near the crowd, farther from the trees, with the sun to our right casting late-afternoon shadows. We’re no longer detached spectators, but an extension of the scene. Masaccio lets us stand in the presence of the human Jesus. While a good attempt at three-dimensionality, Masaccio’s work is far from perfect. Later artists would perfect mathematically what Masaccio eyeballed intuitively.
The disciples all have strong, broad-shouldered bodies, but each face is unique. Blond, curly-haired, clean-shaven John is as handsome as the head on a Roman coin (Masaccio had just returned from Rome). Thomas (far right, with a five-o’clock shadow) is intense. Their different reactions—with faces half in shadow, half in light—tell us that they’re divided over paying the tax.
Masaccio’s people have one thing in common—a faraway look in the eye, as though hit with a spiritual two-by-four. They’re deep in thought, reflective, and awestruck, aware they’ve just experienced something miraculous. But they’re also dazzled, glazed over, and a bit disoriented, like tourists at the Brancacci Chapel.
• Continuing clockwise, we move to the next panel, on the center wall.
Masolino and Masaccio were different in so many ways, but they were both fans of Giotto (c. 1266-1337), who told stories with simple gestures and minimal acting, adding the human drama by showing the reaction of bystanders. Here, the miraculous power of the sermon is not evident in Peter (who just raises his hand) but in the faces of the crowd. The lady in the front row is riveted, while others close their eyes to meditate. The big nun (far right) is skeptical, but wants to hear more. The tonsured monk’s mouth slips open in awe, while the gentleman to the left finds it interesting enough to come a little closer.
Masolino never mastered 3-D space like Masaccio. Peter’s extreme profile is a cardboard cutout, his left leg stands too high to plant him realistically on flat ground, the people in the back have their gazes fixed somewhere above Peter, and the “Masacciesque” mountains in the background remain just that, background.
• Continuing clockwise to the other side of the window, come to...
A muscular man kneels in the stream to join the cult of Jesus. On the bank (far right), another young man waits his turn, shivering in his jockstrap. Among the crowd, a just-baptized man wrestles with his robe, while the man in blue, his hair still dripping, buttons up.
The body language is eloquent: The strongman’s humility, the shivering youth’s uncertainty, and the bowed heads of the just-baptized communicate their reflection on the life-altering choice they’ve just made.
Masaccio builds these bodies with patches of color (an especially effective technique in fresco, where colors can bleed together). He knew that a kneeling man’s body, when lit from the left (the direction of the chapel window), would look like a patchwork of bright hills (his pecs) and dark crevasses (his sternum). He assembles the pieces into a sculptural, 3-D figure, “modeled” by light and shade.
Again, Masaccio was the first artist to paint real humans—with 3-D bodies and individual faces, reflecting inner emotions—in a real-world setting.
• Continue clockwise to the right wall.
Masolino takes a crack at the 3-D style of his young partner, setting two separate stories in a single Florentine square, defined by an arcade on the left and a porch on the right. Crude elements of the future Renaissance style abound: The receding buildings establish the viewer’s point of reference; the rocks scattered through the square define 3-D space; there are secular details in the background (mother and child, laundry on a balcony, a monkey on a ledge); and the cripple (left) is shown at an odd angle (foreshortening). Masaccio may have helped on this panel.
But the stars of the work are the two sharply dressed gentlemen strolling across the square, who help to divide (and unite) the two stories of Peter. The patterned coat is a textbook example of the International Gothic style that was the rage in Florence—elegant, refined, graceful, with curvy lines creating a complex, pleasing pattern. The man walking is at a three-quarters angle, but Masolino shows the coat from the front to catch the full display. The picture is evenly lit, with only a hint of shadow, accentuating the colorful clothes and cheerful atmosphere. In mid-project (1426), Masolino took another job in Hungary, leaving Masaccio to finish the lower half of the chapel. Masolino never again explored the Renaissance style, building a successful career with the eternal springtime of International Gothic.
• Move to the lower level. Start on the left wall with the second panel and work clockwise.
Peter (in that same brown robe...like Masaccio, who was careless about his appearance) raises the boy from the world of bones, winning his freedom from stern Theophilus (seated in a niche to the left).
The courtyard setting is fully 3-D, Masaccio having recently learned a bit of perspective mathematics from his (older) friends Brunelleschi and Donatello. At the far right of the painting are three of the Quattrocento (1400s) giants who invented painting perspective (from right to left): Brunelleschi, who broke down reality mathematically; Alberti, who popularized the math with his book, On Painting; and Masaccio himself (looking out at us), who opened everyone’s eyes to the powerful psychological possibilities of perspective.
Little is known of Masaccio’s short life. “Masaccio” is a nickname (often translated as “Lumbering Antonio”) describing his personality—stumbling through life with careless abandon, not worrying about money, clothes, or fame...a lovable doofus. Imagine the absent-minded professor, completely absorbed in his art.
Next to Masaccio’s self-portrait is a painting within a painting of Peter on a throne. On a flat surface with a blank background, Masaccio has created a hovering hologram, a human more 3-D than even a statue made in medieval times.
“Wow,” said Brother Philip, a 20-year-old Carmelite monk stationed here when Masaccio painted this. Fra Filippo (“Brother Philip”) Lippi was inspired by these frescoes and went on to become a famous painter himself. At age 50, while painting in a convent, he fell in love with a young nun, and they eloped. Nine months later, “Little Philip” was born, and he too grew to be a famous painter—Filippino Lippi, who in 1481 was chosen to complete the Brancacci Chapel.
Filippino Lippi painted substantial portions of this fresco, including the group in the far left (five heads but only eight feet).
• Moving clockwise to the center wall, you’ll see...
Peter is a powerful Donatello statue come to life, walking toward us along a Florentine street. Next to him, in the red cap, is bearded Donatello, Masaccio’s friend and mentor.
Masaccio inspired more than painters. He gave ordinary people a new self-image of what it was to be human. Masaccio’s people are individuals, not generic Greek gods, not always pretty (like the old bald guy) but still robust and handsome in their own way. They exude a seriousness that makes them very adult. Compare these street people with Masolino’s two well-dressed dandies, and you see the difference between Florence’s working-class, urban, “democratic” spirit (Guelphs) and the courtly grace of Europe’s landed gentry (Ghibellines).
• The next panel, on the other side of the altar, is...
Early Christians practiced a form of communal sharing. The wealthy Ananias lies about his contribution, and he drops dead at Peter’s feet. Peter takes the missing share and gives it to a poor lady who can’t even afford baby pants. The shy baby, the grateful woman, and the admiring man on crutches show Masaccio’s blue-collar sympathies.
The scene reflects an actual event in Florence—a tax-reform measure to make things equal for everyone. Florentines were championing a new form of government where, if we all contribute our fair share through taxes, we don’t need kings and nobles.
• The altar under the window holds a painting that is not by Masaccio, Masolino, or Lippi.
This medieval altarpiece replaces the now-destroyed fresco by Masaccio that was the centerpiece of the whole design—Peter’s crucifixion.
With several panels still unfinished, Masaccio traveled to Rome to meet up with Masolino. Masaccio died there (possibly poisoned) in 1428, at age 27. After his death, the political and artistic climate changed, the chapel was left unfinished (the lower right wall), and some of his frescoes were scraped off whole (his Crucifixion of Peter) or in part (in Peter Resurrects the Son of Theophilus, several exiled Brancaccis were erased from history, later to be replaced).
Finally, in 1481, new funding arrived and Filippino Lippi, the son of the monk-turned-painter, was hired to complete the blank panels and retouch some destroyed frescoes.
• The right wall, lower section, contains two panels by Filippino Lippi. The first and biggest is...
Lippi completes the story of Peter with his upside-down crucifixion. Lippi tried to match the solemn style of Masaccio, but the compositions are busier, and his figures are less statuesque, more colorful and detailed. Still, compared with Lippi’s other, more hyperactive works found elsewhere, he’s reined himself in admirably here to honor the great pioneer.
In fact, while Masaccio’s perspective techniques were enormously influential, learned by every Tuscan artist, his sober style was not terribly popular. Another strain of Tuscan painting diverged from Masaccio. From Fra Filippo Lippi to Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, and Filippino Lippi, artists mixed in the bright colors, line patterns, and even lighting of International Gothic. But Masaccio’s legacy remained strong, emerging in the grave, statuesque, harsh-shadow creations of two Florentine giants—Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.