Why a private guided tour of Brancacci Chapel
There are many private family chapels in the churches of Florence, but none of them can be considered “school of the world” as the Brancacci. If you want to be just a few centimeters away from the “book” on which all the greatest artists of the Renaissance have studied, you cannot omit this private tour of the Brancacci Chapel.
If you are looking for one of the symbols of Renaissance painting, well, this is your place!
The frescoes decorating the walls of the Chapel will leave you literally speechless, as happened to generations of artists who have studied them. Stories from the life of Saint Peter started by Masaccio and Masolino in the 3rd decade of the 1400s and then continued and finished by Filippino Lippi in the 80s of 1400. Among them the “Expulsion from Paradise ” and the “Tribute Money” by Masaccio
The artists who worked in the Brancacci Chapel
Three artists: Masolino da Panicale, Filippino Lippi and… Masaccio.
You’ve probably never heard of any of them; you’ll know them during my private tour, but given that we cannot name Masaccio in vain, I want to introduce you to Masaccio right now briefly:
Masaccio is considered to be “the father of Renaissance painting”!
He was born in 1401 and died in 1428. He died at the age of 27!
To date, his first known work dates back to 1422 (not present here in the chapel), which means that he had a very short career, only 6 years—about 2000 days!!
But during these 2000 days of career, Masaccio succeeded in changing the way of understanding painting… FOREVER.
The volume, the depth, the weight of the bodies in one word, reality entered by force in Western painting thanks to Masaccio.
If you know “The Scream” by Edvard Munch (1893), you would love to see the first “silent scream” of the Western painting on the face of Masaccio’s Eva for the “Expulsion from Paradise” painted here in 1426
I can only imagine what Masaccio would have been able to do if he had lived longer!
The “schools of the world”
The schools of the world were and are three, but we don’t mean three places born to teach art but three works of art that were considered of such quality to be able to teach art to the whole world by simply copying them:
The two preparatory cartoons for the Battle of Cascina (by Michelangelo) and the Battle of Anghiari (by Leonardo da Vinci). Two frescoes were planned to be painted on a wall of the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio. Both original cartoons are lost.
The preparatory cartoon for The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and the lamb (by Leonardo da Vinci), made in the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. The final painting is now at the Louvre in Paris, and the preparatory cartoon is at the National Gallery in London.
The Brancacci Chapel. Dozens of artists (including Michelangelo) in the 1400s, 1500s, 1600s, etc. have “stood in line” to get in and copy the frescoes.
Try to find an opening during your stay in Florence to see the frescoes that drove even Michelangelo so crazy.
