Scritti su Masaccio / Writings on Masaccio

The eye undoubtedly plays a key role in this analysis, which, in part, goes against the erudite, though often arid conclusions that art historians have drawn by producing documents and brandishing them to the detriment of a number of specific analyses of art and form, and profound inner intentions that are just as forceful and decisive in the work of every great artist. The larger part of the book is comprised of a chapter written in the late 1980s and published in the volume Impegno e realtà. Da Masaccio alla Nuova Oggettività, but extended with additional iconographic contributions and a number of reflections prompted by the restoration of the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel completed in 1990, and the subsequent reconsideration of attributions to Masaccio.

The collection in this edition, though in keeping with writings already published on other occasions with the addition of some further nuances, integrates some information and exegetic details, supplemented by two short essays. The first is on the supposed certainty of authorship of the Tickling Madonna (Madonna Casini), with a short paper by James Beck written for the presentation of the book Pustole. Divagazioni sull’arte e sul costume (2003), and the second is on the Pisan predella with the Crucifixion of St. Peter.