In his paintings the newly discovered laws of perspective were applied, the drawing of foreshortened parts was correct, and the anatomy of the human body was well understood.

The largest remaining collection of work is the fresco decoration of the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence.

Here Masolino da Panicale had left unfinished a series of frescoes which Masaccio was asked to continue: his six paintings there created a sensation and became the training school of Florentine painters of the succeeding generations, of Michelangelo with the rest.

Typical of Masaccio's style is also the Virgin's left hand, rough-hewn but extremely expressive, which securely holds the weight of the child.

The wealth of detail, so different from the simplicity of the Brancacci Chapel, is related to the small size of the painting and its private destination, to be enjoyed with a slow contemplation at close range.

Three centuries after the fresco was painted, Cosimo III de' Medici, in line with contemporary ideas of decorum, ordered that fig leaves be added to conceal the genitals of the figures.

[12] The painting diverges somewhat from the biblical story, in that the tax collector confronts the whole group of Christ and the disciples, and the entire scene takes place outdoors.

[14] Only two of the disciples can be identified with any degree of certainty: Peter with his iconographic grey hair and beard, and blue and yellow attire, and John; the young beardless man standing next to Christ.

The sense of human dignity typical of the Renaissance also permeates ugliness, poverty and physical illness, subliming their representation and thus avoiding any complacency towards the grotesque.

According to American art historian Mary McCarthy: The fresco, with its terrible logic, is like a proof in philosophy or mathematics, God the Father, with His unrelenting eyes, being the axiom from which everything else irrevocably flows.

Watching the scene the viewer has a feeling of having peeked into an episode of family life, as suggested by the seemingly casual architecture, slightly asymmetric, or the sidelong glances between the various characters, such as the severe nun at the center.

St John the Baptist is also shown with some typical attributes, such as the fur vest, the stick with the cross and a scroll with the words "Ecce Agnus Dei" (Behold the Lamb of God).

To a careful observer, the stick is revealed as a slender Corinthian column, the emblem of the Colonna family, from which came Pope Martin V of Masaccio's times.

It is the wealth of observations taken from the ordinary that reveals Masaccio's hand, such as John's bony foot so firmly planted on the ground and shortened to perfection.

Remarkable are the studies in realistic light, which affects the figures from the top-left corner: it hits the Baptist on the shoulder, amplifying, due to the chromatic contrast, the distance between him and Jerome, who stands before John; half of Jerome's face is in the shadow, as a result of the large hat; part of John's left leg is exposed and beautifully lit up; and light draws the shadows on the carpet of wild flowers.