fresco in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, FlorenceSome of the scenes completed by the duo were lost in a fire in 1771. We know about them through the biography of Masaccio written by Giorgio Vasari. The surviving parts were extensively blackened by smoke, and only a recent removing of two marble slabs covering two areas of the paintings has shown the original appearance of the work.

Masaccio left the work unfinished in 1426 in order to respond to other commissions, probably coming from the same patron. However, it has also been suggested that the declining finances of Felice Brancacci were insufficient to pay for any more work, so the painter therefore sought work elsewhere.

Masaccio returned in 1427 to work again in the Carmine, beginning the Resurrection of the Son of Theophilus, but apparently left it too unfinished, though it has also been suggested that the painting was severely damaged later in the century because it contained portraits of the Branacci family, at that time excoriated as enemies of the Medici. This painting was either restored or completed more than fifty years later by Filippino Lippi.

On February 19, 1426 Masaccio was commissioned by Giuliano di Colino degli Scarsi, for the sum of 80 florins, a major altarpiece for his chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pisa. The work was dismantled and dispersed in the 18th century, and only eleven of the c. twenty original panels have been rediscovered in various places in the world. Masaccio probably worked at it entirely in Pisa, voyaging back and thro to Florence where he was still working to the Histories of St. Peter. In these years Donatello was also working in Pisa at a monument for Cardinal Rinaldo Brancacci, to be sent to Naples. It has been suggested that Masaccio first attempts with plasticity and perspective were based on Donatello's sculpture, before he could study Brunelleschi's more scientific approach to perspective.

Through the help of Brunelleschi, in 1427 Masaccio won a prestigious commission to produce a Holy Trinity for the Santa Maria Novella church in Florence. The fresco, considered by many his masterwork, marks the first use of systematic linear perspective, possibly devised by Masaccio with the assistance of Brunelleschi himself.

Masaccio produced two other works, a Nativity and an Annunciation, now lost, before leaving for Rome where his companion Masolino was frescoing the Basilica di San Clemente. It has been never confirmed that Masaccio collaborated to that work, even though it could be possible he contributed to Masolino's polyptych of the altar of St. Mary Major with his panel portraying St. Jerome and St. John the Baptist, now in the National Gallery of London. Masaccio died at the end of 1428. According to a legend, he was poisoned by a rival painter who had guessed Masaccio's art was unbeatable for him.

Only four frescoes undoubtedly from Masaccio's hand still exist today, although many other works have been credited either in whole or in part to his name. Some others are believed to have been destroyed.