ABSTRACT
In Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori, Giorgio Vasari traces the gradual amelioration of the arts in Italy over the course of three ages, beginning with the “ancient age” of the late thirteenth century and culminating in the sixteenth century during the author’s lifetime. In this very personal account of the history of art, Giotto and Michelangelo are the primary protagonists of the first and third ages respectively. The premier artist of the second age is Masaccio (Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Guidi, 1401-28), whom Vasari first mentions in the preface to the second part of The Lives in a pointed reference to Masaccio’s paintings in the Brancacci Chapel: “[V]ery rare works of the Masters of the second age may be seen to-day, such as those in the Carmine by Masaccio, who made a naked man shivering with cold, and lively and spirited figures in other pictures.”1 In the same passage, he goes on to explain that among the painters of the second age, Masaccio “swept away completely the manner of Giotto, in the heads, the draperies, the buildings, the nudes, the colouring, and the foreshortenings, all of which he made new, bringing to light that modern manner which was followed in these times and has been followed up to our own day.”2
