The lower scenes at the back of the Chapel are, at your right, St. Peter healing the Sick, by the mere fall of his shadow and, at the left, St. Peter giving Alms. In both cases we have Florentine street scenes with a classic air lent by the solemn figures of the apostles. We feel the figures as far or near, and the air that veils them. There is great intentness in the poor folk, and a rugged impersonality in St. Peter and St. James. They are not indulging personal compassion so much as fulfilling a divine mission. Again the combination of a drastic realism with a stylistic majesty is what makes these frescoes unique. They contain vivid portraits, among these the traditional portrait of Masolino, a gentle, heavy, middle-aged face, bearded, and crowned with a sort of tuque—just the man to have conceived the charming but loosely organized compositions at Castiglione d’Olona. What Masaccio looked like we may see in the upper fresco on the right wall. He is the alert and determined figure impersonating St. Thomas, at the left of the group. The story of the Tribute Money, Figure 90, is one of the grandest creations of European art. If, as Leonardo da Vinci asserts, the highest task of painting is to show by the pose and gestures of the body the emotions of the soul, this is one of the greatest paintings. It is remarkable for the dignity lent to an apparently unpromising theme. The story is simply that Christ is required to pay the _denarius_ when there is no money in the company. By a miracle Peter finds the coin in the mouth of a fish and pays it to the tax-gatherer. How the creative imagination has magnified this slender theme! Masaccio has formed a group of potent and formidable individuals, these simple men are fit to shake a world. He has shown them in a moment in which discouragement and determination blend. A technicality threatens to check the salvation of the world. He has discriminated between the assured authority of the Christ and the wrathful energy of St. Peter. He has invested the majestic forms with massive draperies grandly disposed in simple folds. He has given even the tax-gatherer the grace of a Roman athlete. Finally he has set the austere company before a noble river plain upon which press the slopes of lofty mountains, while the undulating crest of a remoter range almost bars off the sky. All objects, human and inanimate, bear firmly on the ground and are wrapped in an enveloping atmosphere. In the quality and arrangement of the figures, it all derives from Giotto; in the vastness of the scale, the introduction of mystery and distance, it is wholly Masaccio’s own. Vasari rightly praised the harmony and discretion with which these powerful assertions of form are made, and sees here the beginnings of the modern style of painting. [Illustration: FIG. 90. Masaccio. The Tribute Money.—_Brancacci Chapel._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 89. Masaccio. St. Peter Baptizing.—_Brancacci Chapel._ ] [Illustration: