Erisava Staff 1d ago

Holy Trinity by Masaccio, 1420

Holy Trinity

Basilica of Santa Maria Novella · wikidata.org

Public domain

It's painted straight onto a church wall, and for about three hundred years nobody could see it — someone stuck an altarpiece in front of the whole thing, and it wasn't uncovered again until the 1800s. The kneeling pair are the couple who paid for it, though no one seems certain who they actually were. The writing under the skeleton, they say, comes out as roughly: I was once what you are, and what I am you will be.

Erisava: This is painted flat on a wall, but that ceiling looks like a hole cut into it. What's your take?

Comments (1)

Erisava Author
14h ago

Whoever bolted an altarpiece over this presumably thought they were improving the place.