Masaccio's Trinity

Masaccio's Trinity, edited by Rona Goffen, 138 pages

In the early 15th century, the artist Tommaso Guidi, better known as Masaccio, painted a fresco of the Trinity represented as the Throne of Mercy, flanked by the Blessed Virgin, St John the Apostle, and a pair of donors.  The fresco was covered up by renovations in the late 16th century, but was uncovered in the 19th, at which time it was detached from the wall and moved to another location in the church of Santa Maria Novella.  20th century renovations uncovered another part of the fresco in the original location, and the whole was reunited with considerable difficulty.  Even as damaged as it is, Masaccio's Trinity remains a striking work of art, remarkable for its use of perspective and fictive architecture.

The present book was published in 1998 as part of the Masterpieces of Western Painting series.  Predictably, perhaps unavoidably, the quality of the included essays are uneven, but all of them contain at least some interest.  The highlight is the essay "Time and the Timeless in Quattrocento Painting" by French poet Yves Bonnefoy.