“Done in the church of the Holy Angels in Arcalto outside of and next to the cemetery.” Translated and slightly abridged from Borghesi and Banchi, _Nuovi Documenti per la Storia dell’ Arte Senese_, (Doc. 6, p. 10) Siena, 1898. This contract well illustrates the elaborateness and strictness of such agreements. It may be compared with the picture itself (Fig. 46). Apparently the artist persuaded the Bishop to give up the plan of twelve prophets and saints on two side pilasters, and made instead a greater number (15) of figures in the upper arcade and pinnacles. [Illustration: FIG. 70. Andrea del Castagno. David, Slayer of Goliath. Parade Shield.—_Widener Coll., Elkins Park, Pa._ ] CHAPTER III MASACCIO AND THE NEW REALISM Ghiberti, Brunellesco, and Donatello about 1400 begin to study Nature and the Antique—The new secular spirit—Discontent with the old pictorial style expressed in reaction by Lorenzo Monaco—in cautious reform by Fra Angelico—and Masolino—in revolutionary reform by Masaccio—The Cassoni painters as illustrators of contemporary manners—Masaccio and the new structure in light and shade—The Problem of the Brancacci Frescoes—Masaccio’s enduring influence—The early Florentine Realists—Paolo Uccello and Perspective—Andrea del Castagno and Anatomy—Domenico Veneziano and Oil Painting—Alesso Baldovinetti. In the two earlier chapters we have considered what Giorgio Vasari calls the vigorous childhood of Italian painting. We are now to observe its splendid youth. The story appropriately begins with three young men and the year 1401 and with a baby, later nicknamed Masaccio, who was born that same year. The three young Florentines represent the new time-spirit. The lucky one, Lorenzo Ghiberti, has just won a competition for the new bronze doors of the Baptistery, and has in that one commission more than twenty years of happy work ahead. Ghiberti is sensitive and thoughtful beyond the wont of the older craftsmen artists. He writes of an antique statue: “It has sweetness of modelling which cannot be caught either in a strong or a dim light, only the hand and touch can find it.” Ghiberti is a critic and analyst as well as a creator. In his “Commentaries,” a product of his old age, he writes: “Thus I have always sought for first principles, as to how nature works in herself, and how I may approach her, how the eye knows the varieties of things, how our visual power works, how visual images come about, and in what manner the theory of sculpture and painting should be framed.” This is the mood of the Renaissance in its most serious aspect.