Brancacci Chapel
A 21-year-old named Masaccio took over this chapel, rewrote the rules of Western painting, and was dead by 27.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Florence offline.
The frescoes painted here between 1425 and 1427 mark the moment Renaissance perspective entered painting for good. Masaccio gave his figures real weight and shadow; his older collaborator Masolino ended up learning from him. Filippino Lippi finished what Masaccio left when he was called to Rome.
What to look for
- The side-by-side contrast: Masolino's serene and innocent Temptation of Adam and Eve against Masaccio's charged Expulsion directly opposite
- Masaccio's figures — volumetrically constructed, modelled with light to create depth, moving through deep perspectival space rather than flat symbolic backdrop
- A Baroque-era tomb positioned in front of some frescoes, placed there when the paintings were considered unfashionable
Enter through the neighbouring convent designed by Brunelleschi, not through the main church.
Brancacci Chapel is one of 38 sights worth the detour in Florence, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Florence pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Florence
- Michelangelo's DavidCarved for a cathedral roofline, then conscripted into politics — a 5.17-metre marble figure that became a republic's defiant face.
- Uffizi GalleryGiorgio Vasari built this as government offices in 1560; the Medici moved their art collection upstairs, and the last heiress gave it all to Florence under a formal family pact when the dynasty died out.
- Florence Cathedral (Duomo di Firenze)Brunelleschi's dome has been the largest masonry dome ever built since 1436 — and nothing has beaten it.
- Palazzo PittiA banker's act of one-upmanship that the Medici, Napoleon, and Italian kings all ended up calling home.
- Ponte VecchioThe only bridge in Florence spared from destruction during World War II — and it has been lined with shops since the Middle Ages.
- Palazzo VecchioFlorence's 1299 town hall was built on a Ghibelline rival's rubble — and the battlements were engineered to drop boiling liquid on anyone who showed up uninvited.