Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: (5) The Infirm healed by tJie Shadow of SS. Peter and John. (6) S. Peter baptizing. (7) S. Peter distributing Alms to the Poor.1 Among the most notable of the series illustrating the life of S.Peter is— (1) The fresco representing S. Peter taking the Tribute Money out of the Mouth of the Fish? A wonderful truthfulness is given in the treatment of S. Peter, whose face is dark from stooping over the fish. The surrounding apostles appear as if alive; the one on the extreme right of the central group is known to be the portrait of Ma- saccio himself, done from a looking-glass. It resembles in form and feature the portrait of Masaccio given by Vasari, while the compact, well-knit frame and square head are suggestive of the young painter in all the power and strength he exhibits in his works. For the first time the effect of life is produced in the figures, which are raised from the flat surface by modelling the forms. (2) The fresco of the Resuscitation of the King's Son in which this art is carried to a still greater perfection. The subject of this fresco is by some supposed to be Eutychus,3 by others the apocryphal story of the challenge of Simon the Magician to the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul to restore to life a youth, who had been dead fourteen years, the kinsman of the Roman emperor. The boy is represented in the picture kneeling before the apostles ; by his side are the skull and bones to indicate his former state of death. A large crowd stand round beholding the miracle, and among the figures are contemporary portraits of Guicciardini, Luigi Pnlci, Antonio Pollaiuolo, and others. The central group was afterwards finished by Filippino. (3) S. Peter baptizing.—Among the figures in this fresco,that of the trembling proselyte, who appears actually to shake from...