artists in the naturalist school, despite the fact that Masac-
cio’s work there was probably unfinished at the time of his
death in Rome at the age of only 27. Sometimes referred
to as the forerunner of MICHELANGELO, Masaccio was, with
Donatello and Brunelleschi, one of the founders of the
Florentine Renaissance. Among other works often attrib-
uted to him is the triptych in San Giovenale at Reggello,
near Florence.
Further reading: Luciano Berti, Masaccio (University
Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1967);
Bruce Cole, Masaccio and the Art of Early Renaissance Flo-
rence (Bloomington, Ind., and London: Indiana University
Press, 1980); Diana Cole Ahl (ed.), The Cambridge Com-
panion to Masaccio (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2002); John T. Spike, Masaccio (New York:
Abbeville, 1996).
Masolino da Panicale (Maso di Cristofano Fini
Masolino) (c. 1383–c. 1447) Italian painter
Born in Panicale, Masolino trained in Florence and may
have worked with GHIBERTIon the baptistery doors there
(1403–07). His earliest dated work is the Madonna and
Child (1423; Kunsthalle, Bremen), which shows the influ-
ence of Lorenzo Monaco and the International Gothic
style, and was painted in the same year that he became a
member of the painters’ guild in Florence. Masolino first
collaborated with MASACCIOon his Virgin and Child with
St. Anne (c. 1420; Uffizi, Florence) and was soon produc-
ing work that was almost indistinguishable from that of
the master. From 1425 to 1427 Masolino worked with
Masaccio on the frescoes illustrating the life of St. Peter in
the Brancacci chapel in Sta. Maria del Carmine, Florence.
In 1427 he went to Hungary. After Masaccio’s death Ma-
solino reverted to the more decorative style of his early
years, producing fresco cycles in Rome (1428–31) and
Castiglione d’Olona (c. 1435).
masque An amateur form of entertainment in 16th- and
17th-century courts, involving a spectacle created by sets
and costumes, with music and DANCE. In the masque’s
later, developed form, verse speeches or dialogue were
specially written for the performance, often based on alle-
gorical themes and classical mythology. The masque
evolved partly from folk and religious traditions, such as
those of Twelfth Night, which featured the arrival of
masked visitors, the presentation or exchange of gifts, and
a final dance in which the entire assembly joined. The pro-
ceedings usually culminated in an unmasking, in which
the royal person or persons and other maskers were re-
vealed in their true identities. Although the emphasis was
on visual spectacle, dance or mime, and music, a classical
“fable” might be used to provide a theme and appropriate
speeches; the “parts” were played by royal or noble ama-
teurs with paid musicians or actors in subordinate roles.
The masque first acquired a definite shape in Italy and
was imbued with great sophistication by Lorenzo de’
Medici (“the Magnificent”); fantastic sets were made pos-
sible by complex machinery devised by Brunelleschi and
other major artists. In France it influenced similar courtly
entertainments such as the BALLET DE COURand mascarade
and the comédie-ballet as developed in the 17th century by
Molière. In England the lively traditions of morris danc-
ing, “disguising,” and mummers’ plays merged in the
court masque, and here the form reached its most elabo-
rate, and final, state in the collaborations of Ben JONSON
and Inigo JONESfor the Stuart court (1605–31). Jones su-
pervised and designed outstanding sets for these produc-
tions, while Jonson, who argued for the central
importance of the poetic text, introduced a new dramatic
unity in the “fable,” as in their Masque of Blacknesse (per-
formed 1605). Although Jonson eventually lost his argu-
ment to Jones’s emphasis on the visual spectacle, it was
not before they had together created a number of brilliant
examples of the type. Jonson was also responsible for in-
troducing the antimasque, a brief contrastive grotesque
and comic section performed before the concluding
dance.
Further reading: Clare McManus, Women on the Re-
naissance Stage: Anna of Denmark and Female Masquing in
the Stuart Court, 1590–1619 (Manchester, U.K.: Manches-
ter University Press, 2002); Stephen Orgel and Roy Strong,
Inigo Jones: The Theatre of the Stuart Court, 2 vols (Berke-
ley, Calif.: University of California Press and London:
Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1973).Mass In music, the Mass comprises two parts: the Ordi-
nary and the Proper. The Ordinary consists of the Kyrie,
Gloria, Credo, Sanctus with Benedictus, and the Agnus
Dei which are fixed; the Proper consists of the Introit,
Gradual, Alleluia, Tract, Offertory, and Communion,
which vary according to season.
The early 15th century saw a more progressive style of
Mass composition led by Johannes CICONIA, who began to
use imitative passages alternating with chordal ones.
Around this time English composers took the lead; John
DUNSTABLEwrote one of the earliest examples of a cyclic
Mass, with sections based on the same tenor melody. Con-
temporary composers in Continental Europe, such as
Gilles de BINCHOISand Guillaume DUFAY, wrote Mass
movements singly or in pairs, with the top voice carrying
the chant. By 1450 the Ordinary of the Mass was the most
important compositional form, and in the late 15th cen-
tury the cantus firmus Mass predominated with the tenor
part carrying the chant throughout. Masses were some-
times based on secular melodies: Dufay’s Missa se la face
ay pale is probably the earliest example. Composers often
competed against one another by setting the same melody.
The late 15th-century Mass culminated in the works of
Josquin DES PRÉSand Jacob OBRECHT; both used traditionalMMaassss 3 30055