Tag Archives: Masolino

Tucked in the corner of an unassuming monastic church, the Brancacci Chapel helped give birth to a style of painting that held sway for centuries. The shabby exterior of the monastic church of S. Maria del Carmine in Florence looks so unpromising that visitors might be tempted to walk right past it. But if they do, they’ll miss one of the city’s greatest treasures: the spot where Renaissance painting was born. Inside, in the right transept, is a chapel endowed in the mid-1300s by a family of wealthy silk merchants named Brancacci. It was dedicated to St. Peter, the name-saint …