Name by which the Italian painter Tomasso di Cristoforo Fini (Panicale 1383 – around 1447) is known. According to Vasari he was one of Ghiberti's aid in the sculpture of the door of Florence 's baptistery, after he assisted Starnina's office; but his art must be framed in the international gothic movement that had penetrated in Florence at the beginning of the thirteenth century. In his Gothicism Masolino however does not follow the idealistic Florentine-Sienese fourteenth century tradition, but with chromatic chords of delicious effect, with extremely refined linear rhythms, he affirms a new sense of form, an objective vision of reality. His style will be partly modified when he will come in contact with Masaccio, from which he learned the new conceptions of space and light. Masolino's activity unfolded in a restricted time span, that is, from 1423 to 1435, a date, which was recorded by the artist on Castiglione Olona's baptistery. His first work, a Madonna (Brema, Kunsthalle) of 1423 is deliciously gothic in the flow of the lines, while another Madonna ( Monaco , Alte Pinakothek), more substantially modeled, indicates a re-elaboration of the naturalism, which had affirmed itself in Florence with Giottino and Giovanni da Milan. But already around 1424 Masolino paints the Madonna con S. Anna ( Florence , Uffizi) in collaboration with Masaccio, painting the figures of St. Ann and of the angels that, although diffused of luminosity and rose softness, show certain shape solidity. In 1424 Felice Brancacci commissioned Masolino to decorate the aristocratic Chapel in the church of Carmine in Florence , then continued by Masaccio and completed at the end of the century by Filippino Lippi. Without a doubt the following works must be ascribed to Masaccio: Adamo ed Eva , diaphanous figures in a shadow-less light, and the first St. Peter's stories that is: the Predicazione del Santo , the Resurrezione di Tabita and the Guarigione dello storpio; in these last ones maybe Masaccio suggested the spatial vision of the backdrop and finished the figure of the lame man, more energetic and sure as opposed to the rest of the barely constructed figures. Masolino interrupted the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel to journey to Hungary summoned by Pippo Spano; but as soon as in 1428 he had already returned to Italy and was intent on frescoing in Rome, S. Caterina's Chapel in S. Clemente (iter 4) . The Storie di S. Caterina e di S. Ambrogio e la Crocefissione were done, according to the most recent critic, in collaboration with Masaccio; the frescoes in the wall depict Masolino 's suggestive chromatic choice, while some figures of the Crocefissione in daring foreshortenings possess an expressive strength such that it would justify its attribution to Masaccio. In the last years of his life Masolino painted the frescoes of the Collegiata and of Castiglione Olona's baptistery that can be considered as his masterpiece. In this decoration Masolino , by now free from Masaccio's influence, measures up to his quality of chorister and fable-teller, putting back together all the themes of his very personal enchanting poetic.