MASACCIO (originally Tommaso Cassai)
Biography

St Peter Healing the Sick with his Shadow

1426-27
Fresco, 230 x 162 cm
Cappella Brancacci, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence

Starting with Vasari (1568), who used the man with the hood as the portrait of Masolino he put on his frontispiece of his biography of the artist, all later scholars have tried to identify the contemporary characters in the scene. It was suggested that the bearded man holding his hands together in prayer may be a portrait of Donatello, others assumed that Donatello is the the old man with beard between St Peter and St John. The latter was considered by others to be Giovanni, Masaccio's brother, but this figure also was assumed to be a self-portrait.

The far right section of the painting is of fundamental importance in understanding the episode: this section includes the facade of a church, a bell tower, a stretch of blue sky and a column with a Corinthian capital behind St John. The street, depicted in accurate perspective, is lined with typical mediaeval Florentine houses; in fact, the scene appears to be set near San Felice in Piazza, which had a commemorative column standing in front of it. But the splendid palace in rusticated stone looks like Palazzo Vecchio in the lower section, although it is much more similar to Palazzo Pitti in the upper part. And in some details it is an anticipation of later facades, first and foremost Palazzo Antinori.

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