St Paul Visits St Peter in Prison

The Brancacci Chapel in Florence had stood half-finished for about 50 years. Masaccio, who had reinvented painting with real weight and space, died suddenly around 1428, still in his twenties, leaving the fresco cycle incomplete. In the early 1480s the young Filippino Lippi was brought in to finish it. This scene shows Saint Paul outside the barred window of the prison where Saint Peter is held, a story drawn from medieval legend. Filippino studied Masaccio so closely that his additions blend almost seamlessly into the older master's work, and for centuries visitors could barely tell where one hand stopped and the other began. He was probably only in his early twenties himself, close to the age Masaccio had been when he began the chapel.