The Tribute Money

The Tribute Money by Masaccio The Tribute Money dominates the entire top section of the left wall and is the most famous and representative scene of the entire cycle. Masaccio painted it in 1425. The scene simultaneously shows three scenes from the Gospels of Matthew in the ancient region of Galilee. In Capernaum, a tax collector asks Christ and the Twelve Apostles to pay tax for the city's temple. Christ decides to submit to the request in accordance with city laws and asks Peter to throw the hook in the nearby lake to catch a fish in whose mouth he'll find a silver coin with which to pay the required fee. Masaccio shows the three stages of the narrative in a single scenic space. At the center of the fresco we see the Twelve Apostles who gather around Jesus, who is recognizable in a dominant position in the center, dressed in a blue cloak and a red tunic, with the unperturbed and idealized facial features of his divine nature. In front of them, the figure depicted in the foreground with his back to us and wearing a short red tunic is the tax collector requesting the payment. To the left of the compact group of Apostles we see Peter's fish in the moment that he is catching it. To the far right of the fresco, Peter giving the tax collector what is due. In all the frescoes, Peter is portrayed in the same way so as to be immediately recognizable, wearing a blue robe covered with a golden yellow cloak. He is a middle-aged man, solemn and vigorous, with short curly gray hair, a short and often curly beard, and heavily lined peasant face, in fact the features of the fisherman that he in reality was. John, the youngest, is depicted in profile, to the left of Christ and to the right of Peter, clutching a red cape in his hand. He is portrayed as a young, blonde, graceful man. The evangelical meaning of the scene lies in the obligation for the Church and the faithful to respect the sphere of civil power reiterated by the Gospel, also in the famous phrase Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's. But beyond this, there was also the desire in the choice of the fresco's theme to send a message of a political social nature, which alluded to the tax reform in force in Florence at the time, which arrived in 1427 with the establishment of the Cadastra of Florence, the first that the city had ever had. The reference to contemporary events seems to correspond well to Masaccio's sensibility, who in every scene in the chapel always brought the scenic context in which the events took place into a contemporary setting. Look at the building to the right. In its entirety, it reflects the architecture of a Renaissance Florentine palazzo. The visual aspect continues in the ring of mountains that move into the distance and take on different colours depending on the distance.