Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/112

86 out, the armed riders and horses, and the effect of light on the distant sea recall the style of another artist, the great Veronese master, Pisanello, whose recent paintings in the Lateran must have been familiar to Masolino, and whose rare imaginative powers made a profound impression on many of his contemporaries.

Another work which Masolino probably executed during this visit to Rome, although at an earlier date than the S. Clemente frescoes, is the altar-piece, now at Naples, in which the foundation of a church, the Madonna of the Snows, by Pope Martin V. is represented, and the Madonna appears above, encircled by an almond-shaped glory of angels. Enrico di Allosio only became Cardinal of S. Clemente in 1446, so that if Masolino painted the frescoes in the basilica by his order, he was already sixty-three. His death seems to have taken place soon afterwards, and it is not unlikely that he is the artist named Tommaso di Cristofano who was buried in Santa Maria del Fiore on the 18th of October, 1447. According to Vasari his chief works were painted about 1440, a statement which in itself is fairly correct, although it cannot be said to agree with the same writer's assertion that he died at thirty-seven. But incorrect as is Vasari's chronology, his remarks on Masolino's style are remarkably just, and he gives this master full credit for his share in the new movement. "Masolino," he writes, "was a man of rare intelligence, and his paintings are executed with great love and diligence. I have often examined his works, and find his style to be essentially different from that of those who came before him. He gave