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| Maso di Banco St Sylvester closes the mouth of the Dragon and revives its Victims (detail) before 1348 fresco Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence |
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| Maso di Banco St Sylvester closes the mouth of the Dragon and revives its Victims (detail) before 1348 fresco Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence |
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| Maso di Banco St Sylvester closes the mouth of the Dragon and revives its Victims (detail) before 1348 fresco Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence |
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| Maso di Banco St Sylvester resurrects a Bull (detail) before 1348 fresco Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence |
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| Maso di Banco and workshop The Lamentation before 1348 fresco Chiesa di San Francesco di Pistoia |
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| Maso di Banco and workshop The Lamentation (detail) before 1348 fresco Chiesa di San Francesco di Pistoia |
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| Bicci di Lorenzo The Annunciation, with Donor ca. 1420 fresco Cenacolo di Fuligno, Florence |
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| Bicci di Lorenzo Christ in the Tomb, with Symbols of the Passion ca. 1420 fresco Cenacolo di Fuligno, Florence |
"In creating a fresco, the thirteenth- or fourteenth-century painter seems to have painted directly on the wall without preparatory drawings on paper beyond the kind needed for painting on panel. But if the subject was unusual, requiring new compositional inventions or perhaps prior approval of the patron, more detailed drawings may well have been made. The early painter drew on the wall rapidly, standing on a scaffolding before a wall whose masonry had been covered with a rough coat of plaster call arriccio. On this surface the painter could make, often with the aid of rules or chalk lines tied to nails the principal divisions of the area to be painted. Then, with or without the aid preliminary sketches, the painter drew the composition rapidly, first with a brush dipped into pale, watery earth color that would leave only faint marks."
"Over these first ocher indications, the painter could draw the rough outline of the figures lightly with a stick of charcoal, further establishing the poses and principal masses of drapery. The third stage was a drawing in red earth called sinopia, after the name of the Greek city Sinope, in Asia Minor, from which the finest red-earth color was thought to come. Mixed with water, the red earth made an excellent material in which to establish musculature, features, and ornament, sometimes with the broad strokes of a coarse-bristle brush, sometimes with shorter, finer strokes. In the process of detaching threatened frescoes from the walls, many of these sinopie have been brought to light. In their freshness and freedom, sinopie are sometimes more attractive to modern eyes than the more finished frescoes that covered them. . . . As the work continued, the artist or an assistant covered a section of sinopia each morning (or the previous evening) with an area of fresh, smooth plaster called intonaco, covering the sinopia and leaving the painter with nothing but memory (or some good working drawings) as a guide to paint that area. Each new patch of intonaco is called a giornata. On any given day, a fresco in progress would consist of a certain proportion of finished work, a certain proportion of sinopia, and one blank, challenging giornata of fresh intonaco that had to be painted before the end of that day. The joints between each giornata are often visible and palpable because the painter cleaned off with a knife whatever intonaco remained unpainted when the light failed so as to have a clean edge to start on the next day. To keep the edge from crumbling, it was beveled. When the new giornata was laid on, it inevitably left a soft and rounded edge adjoining the bevel. One can therefore often determine not only the limits of each giornata, but also the order in which they were done. . . ."
"In the course of painting, the colors in their water vehicle would sink into the fresh intonaco. At this point a chemical reaction takes place: the carbon dioxide of the air combines with the calcium hydrate in the plaster, producing calcium carbonate as the plaster hardens. When dry, fresco colors no longer look the same as when they were first laid down on the wet plaster, and the quality and luminosity of color depend on the exact stage of the drying process of the plaster when the painter applied the color. The painter also had to consider the humidity of the interior, and it goes without saying that frescoes could not be painted in cold weather in unheated interiors. Not all colors were water soluble, and some had to be painted a secco, that is, on the dry plaster from which they were, sooner or later, in danger of peeling off."
"Painters worked from the top down to keep from dropping paint on completed sections, and the floor-boards of the scaffolding had to be lowered as they moved on to paint successively lower levels. The result is a tendency to compose in horizontal strips. The background landscape and architecture, sometimes including the haloes, were almost invariably painted before the heads of the foreground figures. Sometimes the painter started in the center and worked out, sometimes from the sides toward the center. At best it was piecemeal work. . . . The limits of the scaffolding prevented the painter from stepping back to get a view of the whole. . . . As in any form of painting during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, technical skill and experience were required at every stage. Only at the point of the sketches and sinopia and during the painting of faces and details was inspiration of much importance."
– Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art, originally published in 1969, revised by David G. Wilkins and reissued by Abrams in 1993
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| Bicci di Lorenzo The Crucifixion ca. 1420 fresco Cenacolo di Fuligno, Florence |
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| Masolino Pietà 1424 detached fresco Museo della Collegiata di Sant' Andrea, Empoli |
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| Masolino Pietà (detail) 1424 detached fresco Museo della Collegiata di Sant' Andrea, Empoli |
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| Masolino Pietà (detail) 1424 detached fresco Museo della Collegiata di Sant' Andrea, Empoli |
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| Masolino Pietà (detail) 1424 detached fresco Museo della Collegiata di Sant' Andrea, Empoli |
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| Giuliano Pesello (Giuliano d'Arrigo) Night Sky with Constellations of the Zodiac 1442 dome fresco Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence |
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| Giuliano Pesello (Giuliano d'Arrigo) Night Sky with Constellations of the Zodiac (detail) 1442 dome fresco Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence |