Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/424

410 Peter more particularly, bent forward and making considerable effort as he draws the money from the mouth of the fish, has his face reddened with the exertion and position. When he pays the tribute also, the expression of his face as he carefully counts the money, with that of him who receives it, and which last betrays an excessive eagerness to become possessed of it; all this is depicted with the most vivid truth, the latter regarding the coins which he holds in his hand with the greatest pleasure. Masaccio also depicted the restoration to life of the king’s son by St. Peter and St. Paul, but this last work remained unfinished at the death of Masaccio, and was afterwards completed by Filippino. In the picture which represents St. Peter administering the rite of Baptism, there is a figure which has always been most highly celebrated: it is that of a naked youth, among those who are baptised, and who is shivering with the cold. This is in all respects so admirable and in so fine a manner, that it has ever since been held in reverence and admiration by all artists, whether of those times or of a later period. This chapel has indeed been continually frequented by an infinite number of students and masters, for the sake of the benefit to be derived from these works, in which there are still some heads so beautiful and life-like, that we may safely affirm no artist of that period to have approached so nearly to the manner of the moderns as did Masaccio. His works do indeed merit all the praise they have received, and the rather as it was by him that the path was opened to the excellent manner prevalent in our own times; to the truth of which we have tes-