The figure of this painter who comes from Valdarno is strictly related to that of Masaccio. Mariotto was born in San Giovanni around 1395 and was brother-in-law of the great painter, because he married his sister Caterina, daughter of his mother’s second marriage. Mariotto was just a child when he moves in Florence and he has already remembered in 1429 as “Dipintore” of a certain reputation. He attends the workshop of Bicci, di Lorenzo and he also knows the works of art of Giovanni Toscani and Arcangelo of Cola from Camerino.
Mariotto painted boards at the boundary between tradition and renewal, in that border area between classical setting and new renaissance results: “La Pietà e i Santi” in the Church of Carda in Casentino is one of his major results. As well as the “Christus patiens” (1420-25) coming from the Church of S.Lucia in San Giovanni, preserved now in the Museum of Basilica: a not very Florentine but Nordic matrix iconography (the theme of the Holy Blood belongs to the popular traditions of North Europe).
Another work preserved in the Museum of Basilica is the “Madonna in trono e Santi”, coming from the Church of S.Lorenzo (1453).