Tommaso Cassai, known as Masaccio, was the son of a notary from Gaiole in Chianti. According to Scheggia, his brother, he was born on 21 December 1401. His very short life, in fact he died in Rome at the age of only 27 years, constitutes however a fundamental event in the history of art of the early Renaissance and his contemporaries were fully aware of it if Filippo Brunelleschi had to say: "We have made a great loss in Masaccio". His extraordinary and very modern personality is revealed in the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel, in particular in St. Peter healing the sick, in the Tribute, in The Expulsion of the Progenitors. Masaccio is therefore the first Renaissance artist who was able to represent the daily reality of man, no longer seen in idyllic environments, but in rational spaces and perspective measured.
Casa Masaccio is an ancient building, placed along Corso Italia at n. 83, in the historical centre of San Giovanni Valdarno, born as a balcony house in the XIV century, it has been restored several times in the following centuries. In the seventeenth century were replaced in the main facade of the original wooden brackets with other stone. It was restored at the beginning of the '60s and officially opened at the end of the '70s as an exhibition centre for modern and contemporary art, currently used as a space for temporary exhibitions.

The building has three floors:
ground floor consisting of a room used as a warehouse which, if necessary, is transformed into a ticket office and a corridor through which you access via stairs to the first floor.
first floor consisting of some exhibition rooms.
second floor with an exhibition room.