"Masaccio was an excellent imitator of nature, universally acclaimed, an able composer, pure and unadorned: because he dedicated himself only to the representation of what is true: and to the perspective of his figures: he was certainly of greater skill and foresight than others of those times: and most able, being so young as to die at the age of twenty six."
- Leonardo da Vinci 1500
"... we could see the gigantic step forward Masaccio caused in painting, which for many years had moved forward so slowly that it appeared stationary but after him took only eighty years to reach its highest in Italy."
- Anton Raphael Mengs
"...after that first school (that of Giotto) came others which advanced a little more, like Masolino and Masaccio who, in the movement he gave to garments, resembled the style of Raphael though preceeding him almost by a century."
- Sir Joshua Reynolds 1784
"Born poor and almost unknown during most of his short life, he worked alone the most important revolution which painting has ever experienced. The splendor of the Italian school began with him. Until then it had not discovered that charm peculiar to itself, that of real expression together with a great beauty and purity"
