Maso di Banco, active (1320–46)

• Was an Italian painter of the 14th century, who worked in Florence.
• He and Taddeo Gaddi were the most prominent Florentine pupils of Giotto di Bondone, exploring the three-dimensional dramatic realism inaugurated by Giotto.

• Maso's name and work are known to us from Lorenzo Ghiberti's autobiographical I Commentari, which identifies frescoes in the chapel of the Holy Confessors at Santa Croce, Florence as his chief work.

• The frescoes, not signed or dated but probably c 1340, represent scenes from the Life of St. Sylvester (Pope Sylvester I), the Last Judgment, and The Entombment.

• His fresco of a particular judgment is in the Bardi banking family chapel of Santa Croce.

• It features Gualtiero de' Bardi pleading on behalf of his soul before Jesus Christ.

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