Editing Masaccio (section)

==Early life==
Masaccio was born to Giovanni di Simone Cassai and Jacopa di Martinozzo in Castel San Giovanni di Altura, now [[San Giovanni Valdarno]] (today part of the [[province of Arezzo]], [[Tuscany]]).<ref>John T. Spike, ''Masaccio,'' New York: 1996, 21–64, and Diane Cole Ahl, ''The Cambridge Companion to Masaccio,'' Cambridge, 2002, 3–5.</ref> His father was a [[notary]] and his mother the daughter of an innkeeper of [[Barberino di Mugello]], a town a few miles north of [[Florence]]. His family name, Cassai, comes from the trade of his paternal grandfather Simone and granduncle Lorenzo, who were carpenters/cabinet makers (''casse'', hence ''cassai''). Masaccio's father died in 1406, when he was only five; later that same year a brother was born, named Giovanni (1406–1486) after his father. He also was to become a painter, with the nickname of [[Giovanni di ser Giovanni Guidi|Lo Scheggia]] meaning "the splinter".<ref>On Giovanni's career, see Luciano Bellosi and Margaret Haines, ''Lo Scheggia'', Florence, 1999.</ref> In 1412 Monna Jacopa married an elderly [[apothecary]], Tedesco di maestro Feo, who already had several daughters, one of whom grew up to marry the only other documented painter from Castel San Giovanni, Mariotto di Cristofano (1393–1457).

There is no evidence for Masaccio's artistic education;<ref>Vasari (II, 295) implies that Masolino was Masaccio's teacher, but the earliest known work by Masaccio (the ''San Giovenale Triptych'') is painted in a style so different from Masolino's approach that it is hard to tie the two together (Luciano Berti, "Masaccio 1422," ''Commentari'' 12 (1961) 84–107.  Scholars cannot agree on any teacher for the young artist, though several names (Mariotto di Cristofano, Bicci di Lorenzo, Niccolo di ser Lapo) have been put forward. Recently scholars have also suggested that he may have trained as a manuscript illuminator. Roberto Bellucci and Cecilia Frosinini, "Masaccio:  Technique in Context," in ''The Cambridge Companion to Masaccio'', ed. Diane Cole Ahl, Cambridge, 2002, 105–122.</ref>  however, Renaissance painters traditionally began an apprenticeship with an established master around the age of 12. Masaccio would likely have had to move to Florence to receive his training, but he was not documented in the city until he joined the painters guild (the Arte de' Medici e Speziali) as an independent master on January 7, 1422, signing as "Masus S. Johannis Simonis pictor populi S. Nicholae de Florentia."