Apart from the "Adam and Eve" scenes, which are the smallest of the pictures, the most famous is Masaccio's picture of "The Tribute Money". This large picture is set partly against a background of mountains and a lake, and partly against the background of a town which is similar to Florence. There are three scenes from the story. In the centre of the picture is a large group, Jesus and his twelve disciples. A tax collector has come to ask for a payment, but none of the men have any money. Jesus tells Peter to go fishing in the lake. Peter looks rather annoyed, wondering what good it will do. To the left, the small figure of Peter is kneeling at the edge of the lake with a fish he has caught. Inside the fish is a coin. To the right side of the picture, Peter is shown giving the coin to the tax collector. He no longer looks argumentative. Instead, he looks humble. Masaccio has expertly shown the feelings of the characters, not only by their faces, but also through body language.
Neither Masaccio nor Masolino were able to work on the frescoes continuously, as they both kept getting other jobs to attend to. In 1428 Masaccio was asked to go to Rome to paint an altarpiece for one of the most important and ancient churches, Santa Maria Maggiore. He only painted one panel, "Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist", before he died at the age of 27 years. Masolino and perhaps another artist, Domenico Veneziano worked on, and finished the altarpiece, which was later broken into pieces and scattered to galleries in different countries. Masaccio's panel is in the National Gallery, London.
Masolino lived for another 19 years, but he never went back to finish the Brancacci frescoes. The Brancacci family fell into disgrace and were chased out of Florence. One of Masaccio's pictures was attacked because it had portraits of some of the Brancacci family in it. Some 50 years later, in the 1480s, all the scenes that remained incomplete or not begun were painted by Filippino Lippi, who tried to respect the styles that Masaccio and Masolino had used before him.
The chapel, which was dedicated to Saint Peter, was re-dedicated to "Our Lady of the Common People" and to her honour a magnificent ancient altarpiece by Coppo di Marcovaldo, dating from about 1280 was put into place. Because this image of the Virgin Mary was said to work miracles, many hundreds of candles were lit in front of it which soon stained the frescoes so that their bright colours could no longer be seen. Eventually the painting was moved to a different church. Then part of the roof fell in and had to be replaced. More damage was done in re-decorating. In 1680 the Marquis Francesco Ferroni decided that the paintings were too old-fashioned and should all be pulled down. Luckily the Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere stopped this from happening. In 1734 a painter called Antonio Pillori cleaned the frescoes. Then in the 1770, there was a fire in the church, causing worse staining and some damage to the frescoes. (Luckily the precious altarpiece had been moved.)
In recent years there have been four interesting discoveries. During a minor cleaning in 1904 two slabs of marble near the altar were moved. Underneath were the bright colours that showed what the frescoes should look like. Examination of the areas where two windows had been changed showed the plans for two paintings that had been destroyed. The final discoveries in the chapel itself were two painted "roundels" with little angel faces in them, one by Masaccio and one by Masolino.
There was a problem to be solved in the minds of some art historians. Despite these interesting findings, there was a scene missing from the story of Saint Peter. It is the scene where Jesus says "You are Peter, and on this Rock I build my Church." This part of the story is of the greatest importance to the Roman Catholic Church because Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, and so the Pope rules as his direct line. The scene is usually shown by Jesus giving Peter the "Keys of Heaven". "The Keys", for hundreds of years, have been the symbol of the Pope. But the story of "the Keys" is completely missing.
Then, in the 1940s, John Pope-Hennessy, the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, realised that the museum owned a work of art that was exactly the thing that was missing from the Brancacci Chapel. It was a thin, almost flat marble slab delicately carved with the scene of Jesus giving "the Keys" to Peter. It was just the right size to make the front of an altar. And although it could not be proved, it was almost certainly carved by Masaccio's friend, Donatello.
At some time while he was working on the "Brancacci Chapel", Masaccio painted a fresco for another church in Florence, "Santa Maria Novella", the church of the Dominican Order. This is a very remarkable painting and one of Masaccio's most famous. It shows the "Holy Trinity", (or God in three parts). God is shown as the eternal Creator, as the humble Sacrifice in Jesus on the Cross and as the inspiring Spirit. On either side of the Cross stand the Virgin Mary and Saint John. The two kneeling figures are the family who paid for the painting.
Masaccio has painted this very holy scene as if it was taking place in a deep recess or small chapel in the wall of the church. He has done this by using very accurate perspective. It is believed that the architect Brunelleschi may have helped him with this, as the painted architecture looks very much like buildings that Brunelleschi designed.
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Vasari writes that Masaccio was not very famous in his own time. In 1440 his body was brought home to Florence and buried at Santa Maria del Carmine but no monument was put up in his honour. Shortly afterwards people began to honour him as a painter. Michelangelo and many other painters and sculptors went to the "Brancacci Chapel" to study Masaccio's paintings. His influence can be seen in the paintings of Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Ghirlandaio and particularly Michelangelo.
Wind power in Germany
Germany is the world's biggest user of wind power with an installed capacity of 20,621MW in 2006, ahead of Spain which had 11,615MW. There are 18,000 wind turbines in Germany. The country plans to build more.
Wind power in Denmark
After the world's oil crises in the 1970s, Denmark started to develop wind power. In 1988, two years after the Chernobyl disaster, the Danes passed a law forbidding the construction of nuclear power plants.
The Danes were pioneers in developing commercial wind power during the 1970s and today almost half of the wind turbines around the world are produced by Danish manufacturers such as Vestas.
Wind power in Denmark provided 30% of the electricity produced in Denmark in 2012, and cumulative installed capacity over recent years is shown in the Table below.
Wind turbines are popular with people in Denmark.
Sources: Global Wind 2005 Report, p.7 <br>Global Wind 2006 Report, p.9
Don River (Russia)
The Don (Дон) is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 km southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,870 km (1,162 miles) to the Sea of Azov.
From its source, the river first flows southeast to Voronezh, then southwest to its mouth. The main city on the river is Rostov on Don, its main tributary, the Donets.
In antiquity, the river was seen as the border between Europe and Asia. In the Hebrew Book of Jubilees, it is mentioned as being part of the border, beginning with its westernmost point up to its mouth, between the allotment of Japheth to the north and that of Shem to the south, sons of Noah. During the times of the old Scythians it was known in Greek as the Tanaïs, and has been a major trading route ever since.