accio performed. No doubt
if he had not, another would, for it had to come: the new demand was
that religion should be reconciled with life.

It is generally supposed that Masaccio had Masolino as his ally in
this wonderful series; and a vast amount of ink has been spilt over
Masolino's contributions. Indeed the literature of expert art criticism
on Florentine pictures alone is of alarming bulk and astonishing in
its affirmations and denials. The untutored visitor in the presence
of so much scientific variance will be wise to enact the part of
the lawyer in the old caricature of the litigants and the cow, who,
while they pull, one at the head and the other at the tail, fills
his bucket with milk. In other words, the plain duty of the ordinary
person is to enjoy the picture.

Without any special knowledge of art one can, by remembering the
early date of these frescoes, realize what excitement they must have
caused in the studios and how tongues must have clacked in the Old
Market. We have but to send our thoughts to the Spanish chapel at
S. Maria Novella to realize the technical advance. Masaccio, we see,
was peopling a visible world; the Spanish chapel painters were merely
allegorizing, as agents of holiness. The Ghirlandaio choir in the same
church would yield a similar comparison; but what we have to remember
is that Ghirlandaio painted these frescoes in 1490, sixty-two years
after Masaccio's death, and Masaccio showed him how.

It is a pity that the light is so poor and that the frescoes have
not worn better; but their force and dramatic vigour remain beyond
doubt. The upper scene on the left of the altar is very powerful: the
Roman tax collector has asked Christ for a tribute and Christ bids
Peter find the money in the mouth of a fish. Figures, architecture,
landscape, all are in right relation; and the drama is moving, without
restlessness. This and the S. Peter preaching and distributing alms
are perhaps the best, but the most popular undoubtedly is that below
it, finished many years after by Filippino Lippi (although there are
experts to question this and even substitute his amorous father), in
which S. Peter, challenged by Simon Magus, resuscitates a dead boy,
just as S. Zenobius used to do in the streets of this city. Certain
more modern touches, such as the exquisite Filippino would naturally
have thought of, may be seen here: the little girl behind the boy,
for instance, who recalls the children in that fr