Masaccio, born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was a Florentine artist who is regarded as the first great Italian painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at imitating nature, recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense of three-dimensionality. He employed nudes and foreshortenings in his figures. This had seldom been done before him. December 30, 1401 – 1428; died at about 26. Alive at the same time as Joan of Arc, Johannes Gutenberg, Zheng He, Jan Hus, and Leon Battista Alberti. Wiki link