Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 1.djvu/426

412 that he died in the fairest flower of his youth; and so sudden was his decease, that there were not wanting persons who ascribed it to poison rather than to any other cause (accidente). It is said that when Filippo di Ser Brunellesco heard of this event, he remarked, “We have suffered a very great loss in the death of Masaccio”, and that it grieved him exceedingly, the rather as he had himself long laboured to instruct the departed painter in matters touching the rules of perspective and architecture. Masaccio was buried in the abovenamed church of the Carmine in the year 1443, and although no memorial was placed over his sepulchre at the time—he having been but little esteemed while in life —yet there were not wanting those who honoured him after his death by the following epitaphs: —