This essay seeks to contribute a new dimension to current understandings of the context in which the frescoes of Masolino and Masaccio (and to an extent those of Filippino Lippi) were created and read in fifteenth-century Florence by approaching them from the point of view of sermon studies. 1 It argues that these frescoes, on which so much scholarly attention has been concentrated, cannot be adequately understood without joining categories which hitherto have not been connected. In particular, for a society in which religious words and images saturated people’s language and experience, this essay unpacks the tight nexus between space, word and image within a context which might best be described as liturgical. 2 The skills which were brought to bear

1 I express my thanks to my friend, Dr Paul Chandler O. Carm, for giving me access to the Carmelite Library in Melbourne and for congenial conversations about medieval Carmelites. Dr Megan Holmes offered reassurance on a number of points from the point of view of art history; her enthusiasm for earlier oral presentations of the paper has encouraged me to commit my ephemeral words to print. Dr Holmes, Profs. John Paoletti and Bill Kent kindly read the final version. To my wife, Dr Jane Drakard, I owe special gratitude; she maintained her belief in this essay and furnished critical comment on numerous drafts. For his warm hospitality at Villa I Tatti for a period of research and writing I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Joseph Connors. Indeed, I am grateful to him and to Nicholas Eckstein for the invitation to present the original paper which led me away from my normal Dominican preachers to Carmelite devotion. Finally, I dedicate this essay to the memory of two of my mentors, Fr Leonard Boyle OP and Fr Salvatore Camporeale OP