Renaissance and

Leon Battista Alberti's new Renaissance facade (1470) for the medieval Dominican Church
of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.
Saint was transformed from a mystically ordained by its citizens. He passes along a street and his shadow
individual into a man whose life holds value for other falls on three beggars who are thereby restored to
men. His actions convey the requirements that the health. One still lies on the ground like an animal, the
value of human action lies in its benefit to human second is half risen, the miracle of his restored
existence. Masaccio's frescoes of the life of St. Peter humanity not yet complete, and the third is fully erect,
illustrate the Humanist concept of the Saint -- the like a man, able to give expression to his human power
perfected soul. through prayer, for "religion is as natural to man as
St. Peter was a Saint of considerable importance for barking to a dog." In taking possession of his full
the Florentines. He was Christ's vicar, the founder of _ human powers, the former beggar takes his place
the Church and the first Pope; and for the Florentines, among the citizens, the fully human. Prayer is the
the Church was the most important source of their natural expression of such human thought, the power
banking wealth. The Papacy had been shattered to make the connection between one's real self and
during the Great Schism, when there were as many as God, universal perfection.
three competing Popes. The restoration of a Humanist '"
Pope allied to Florence was vital, for he could be the Through his teaching, restoring the sick and, not
shield against the encroachments of the Dominican least, restoring fiscal order, Peter benefits man.
Order, the feudal monarchies and the Councils. From these acts he himself is ennobled as a human
being. He embodies the Humanist ideal, a soul that is
The Florentine banker Brancacci, who com.
missioned these paintings, considered St. Peter the totally universalized, is perfected, and through his
deeds becomes a source for others to progress towards
representation of the Church upon whose rock his
wealth and security was founded. This relationship is perfection. The layman, the citizen, is directly united
to the process of perfection Peter embodies, so there is
illustrated in the Tribute Money where Peter executes
no longer a need for a special bureaucracy, the
Christ's order to pay the gatekeeper, the represen- Clergy, to act as mediators between the Saint and
tative of the city. (Fig. 2) In another scene, Peter re- citizen. Instead, Humanism takes over the Saints,
stores to health the son of the city ruler, and in a third, Clergy and Order to convey the secular notion of
painted by Masaccio's companion Masolino, two human perfectibility.
Florentine silk merchants stroll across a plaza in Florence
where Peter miraculously restores to life two This process of relocating perfection within the
4ndividuals. (Fig. 3) realm of being was the subordination of the religious
Peterparticipatesdirectly.in the lifeofthecity.He Orders to the secularauthority.Cosimo de'Medici,
moves through the streetsof Florence accompanied the secularrulerofFlorence,used thepaintingofFra
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