Originally named Tommaso Giovanni di Mone, Masaccio was born in San Giovanni Valdarno, near Florence, on December 21, 1401, and died in Rome in 1428. He was the first great painter of the Italian Renaissance, whose innovations in using scientific perspective introduced the modern style in painting.
             Masaccio joined the Florentine painters' guild in 1422. His remarkably individual style was unique and owed little to other painters. However, Giotto influenced him along with the more substantial influences of the architect Brunelleschi, and the sculptor Donatello, who was both his contemporaries in Florence.
             From Brunelleschi, Masaccio acquired the knowledge of mathematical proportion necessary to his revival of the principles of scientific perspective, which is evident in one of his most acclaimed frescos, The Trinity housed in the Santa Maria Novella in Florence.
             Masaccio painted The Trinity or The Holy Trinity as it is also known, around 1427. It is the perfect example of how he mastered the art of mathematical proportion about scientific perspective because of how the chamber stands behind the scene of Jesus being crucified. The chamber turns the background into a continuation of the natural world because it looks realistic. Masaccio's use of scientific perspective is "projected so accurately in terms of perspective principles"[Hartt, F.Pg 206]. When it was first done, Brunelleschi was held responsible for the actual painting, showing us a powerful influence he had on Masaccio. Masaccio's use of foreshortening on the rosettes on the ceiling was made to recede with so much skill that the surface looks indented. The Trinity was also the first time that complete perspective had been used in Western art.
             Another one of Masaccio's frescoes is The Tribute Money. The narrative tells us of the biblical story where St. Peter finds the money to pay the Roman taxpayer in the mouth of a fish near the shore of Lake Galilee. Masaccio has re...