In painting, Masaccio (1401-28) stands conspicuous, even among many painters of rare gifts. Modern critics call him Giotto reincarnate. Masaccio is an unflattering nickname for Tommaso, and recalls the only personal trait we know of him. Vasari says: "He was a most absent-minded person and very casual, like a man who has fixed his will and his whole mind on art only, and cares little about himself and less about others. He never wanted to think in any way about the things or the cares of this world, even of his own clothes, and he never went to get the money due him from his debtors except when he was in extreme need. Instead of Thomas, everybody called him Masaccio; not because he was bad, being good nature itself, but because of his great absent-mindedness. Nevertheless, he was as affectionate in doing useful and amiable acts for other people as could possibly be wished." This "marvellous boy" died at the age of twenty-seven, but left an ineffaceable mark on Italian painting. Across the Arno, in the ugly church of Santa Maria del Carmine, is a chapel on the right, in which, mingled with the work of contemporaries and continuers, are Masaccio's frescoes, figures of St. Peter and St. John, of a shivering boy, and a few others. Leonardo da Vinci said: "After Giotto, the art of painting declined again, because every one imitated the pictures that were already done; thus it went on till Tommaso of Florence, nicknamed Masaccio, showed by his perfect works how those who take for their standard any one but Nature--the mistress of all masters--weary themselves in vain."[16] In that little chapel, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and scores of the greatest painters of Italy have admired, studied, and copied. Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio are but the greater names in the fine arts. Well might Leon Battista Alberti, himself a great architect and humanist, on return from exile to his native city, say to Brunelleschi: "I have been accustomed both to wonder and to grieve that so many divine arts and sciences which we see to have abounded in those most highly endowed ancients were now lacking and utterly lost ... but since I have been restored to this our native land that surpasseth all others in her adornment, I have recognized in many but chiefly in thee, Philip [Brunelleschi], and in our near friend Donato [Donatello] the sculptor, and in those others, Nencio [Ghiberti], and Luca [della Robbia], and Masaccio, genius capable for every praiseworthy work, not inferior to that of any ancient and famous master in the arts."[17] FOOTNOTES: [16] _Leonardo da Vinci_, Richter. [17] _Church Building in the Middle Ages_, C. E. Norton, p. 280. CHAPTER XXV THE RENAISSANCE (1450-1492)