In a side chapel of a church in the Oltrarno lies the point where European painting changed course. The Brancacci Chapel is small, takes forty minutes to see, and holds the frescoes with which Masaccio, barely past twenty, taught the painters who came after him how to paint a body that has weight.
For a century everyone came here to study, from Leonardo to Michelangelo, who according to Benvenuto Cellini took right here the punch that broke his nose. And today the chapel is seen from the floor: the scaffolding from which, during the restoration, you could look at the frescoes from a metre away has been taken down, and the pages that still describe the climb are out of date.
Two practical points. The chapel is closed on Tuesdays. And booking, which is free, is recommended but not compulsory for anyone coming alone or in a pair; it becomes compulsory for groups and school parties.
Have you ever wondered why the Expulsion from Eden in so many reproductions is not the one you will see in the chapel?
Why a side chapel in an outlying church counts as much as the Uffizi
What is one of the decisive pages of European art doing in a church that promises nothing from outside? Santa Maria del Carmine rises in the Oltrarno, off the circuit of the five things everyone sees, and its front is a bare wall. Inside, at the end of the right transept, there is a chapel that Italian painters used for a century the way you use a school.
Leonardo, Botticelli and Michelangelo came here to copy. That Michelangelo also took a punch here, and carried the broken nose for the rest of his life, is told by Benvenuto Cellini, who says he heard it from the man who threw it, Pietro Torrigiano; Vasari confirms the fight but not the place, and puts it in the garden of San Marco. Two versions of one event: worth taking as a story handed down, not as a record.
What happened here between 1424 and 1428 has a technical name and a simple effect. Masaccio began painting figures as solid bodies lit by a single light that comes from a definite direction and casts consistent shadows. Before him figures were beautiful and flat. After him they have weight.
The Expulsion, and the leaves that are no longer there
High on the wall to the left is the most famous panel: the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden. It is narrow and tall, and there are only three figures.
Look carefully, because every detail does a job. Adam covers his face with both hands and walks with his head down. Eve does not: Eve lifts her face, her mouth open in a howl, and covers herself with her arms. Above them the angel, dressed in red, points the way with an outstretched arm. The gate of paradise is just to the left, and the two are already moving away.
There is almost no landscape and no ornament. There is one figure’s shame and the other’s despair, and they are two different things.
In 1680, on the orders of Cosimo III de’ Medici, fig leaves were painted in tempera onto Adam and Eve. They stayed there for three centuries. The restoration carried out between 1983 and 1990 removed them, along with the overpainting and the soot, bringing the colours back to what they had been.
The practical consequence: if you see the Expulsion with the leaves in a book or on a website, you are looking at a photograph taken before 1990. The figures you will see in the chapel are nude, as Masaccio painted them.
Who painted what, because it is not all Masaccio
How many hands worked on these walls? Three, and the third arrived half a century after the first two, yet the chapel is almost always sold as though it were all by Masaccio.
Masolino da Panicale was the older and the better established, and he began. Masaccio worked beside him and was born in 1401, eighteen years later. The site stopped when both of them left Florence, and Masaccio died in Rome at twenty-seven. Half a century later, in 1481 and 1482, Filippino Lippi completed the scenes that had been left half done.
The comparison can be made with the naked eye and needs no expertise: Masolino’s figures are more graceful, lighter, with crisp outlines; Masaccio’s are more massive, with shadows that lift them off the ground. On the same wall, a few metres apart, are the painting of before and the painting of after.
The Sala della Colonna, new in 2026
Since 1 February 2026 the route also includes the Sala della Colonna, opened to the public and now part of the visit.
If you have been before, it is a good reason to return: the visitable part of the complex changed this year, and guidebooks printed earlier do not say so. If you are holding last year’s guide, that piece is not in it.
Practical information
Details checked on 10 September 2026 on the Florence civic museums portal. Prices and opening times change: check again before you travel.
Tickets. Admission costs 10 euros and is bought on the bigliettimusei.comune.fi.it portal or at the ticket office, at piazza del Carmine 14.
Opening times. The chapel opens every day except Tuesday, 10:00-17:00; on Sunday 13:00-17:00. Last admission is at 16:00.
Booking. It is not compulsory for individuals, but it is strongly recommended, because the places in each slot are counted. It is compulsory for groups and for schools. The service is free and is booked on 055 0541450 or by writing to cappellabrancacci@musefirenze.it.
Guided visits. They are held on Monday, Friday and Saturday at 11:00, 12:00, 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00, and on Sunday at 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00.
Getting there. The church is on piazza del Carmine, in the Oltrarno. From the Ponte Vecchio it is a ten-minute walk west, along Borgo San Frediano.
How long it takes. Forty minutes for the chapel. An hour adding the Sala della Colonna and a proper stop in front of the Expulsion.
The rest of Florence
The other Masaccio in Florence is the Trinity, painted in Santa Maria Novella, on the other side of the Arno: it is the first painting built on a mathematically correct perspective, and together with this chapel it forms the pair you go to see when you come for him. The suggested order for two days is in what to see in Florence in 2 days.
To see what a painter who had taken the opposite road was doing in the same years, go up to the Museo di San Marco and look at Fra Angelico. For the sculpture that posed the same problems there is the Bargello Museum, and for the next generation the Uffizi.
Staying in the Oltrarno, ten minutes from here are the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens.
Photo credits: chapel, Expulsion and altar by Sailko (CC BY 2.5), from Wikimedia Commons.
