Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini, called Masolino da Panicale, was born in San Giovanni Valdarno around 1383.
Notwithstanding the lack of evidence to corroborate this, Ghiberti's art is acknowledged as being one of the primary components of his artistic formation.
In 1423 he enrolled in the Arte dei Medici e Speziali and painted the Madonna with Child , today in Bremen. He was an esteemed painter - albeit not among the very first in Florence - when he met Masaccio (1401-1428): this painter who was twenty years younger than Masolino had come to paint in the same workshop.
It had at length been thought that Masaccio had been the pupil of Masolino but this is absolutely not the case. In fact, Masolino immediately understood the extraordinary quality and novelty of Masaccio's painting, with whom he collaborated on two works: the Saint Anne in the Uffizi (c. 1424) and the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel(1424-1428).
Masaccio died soon after, aged only 27, although his lesson remained unforgettable for Masolino who for his entire life tried to blend his still gothic language with plasticity, perspective and the classical taste which Masaccio had expressed in the Brancacci Chapel. Masolino's painting was not revolutionary but was, rather, a vivacious updating of the Gothic. His architectures rigorously followed the new perspective rules although they nevertheless remained a decorative frame within which to narrate medieval fables with enchanted characters.
Masolino sojourned at the Hungarian Court (1425), in Rome (the frescoes in San Clemente, the Chapel of Santa Caterina, 1428, in collaboration with Masaccio) and in Castiglione Olona.
Here, commissioned by Cardinal Branda Castiglioni, (who had already commissioned the works in San Clemente), from 1435 he worked in the Collegiate Church (Stories of the Virgin) and in the Battistero (Stories of the Baptist).