Transport of the Body of the Baptist

In Andrea's sculpture, rigorously shunning all showiness, one seems to rediscover the ineffable freshness and severity of mature Attic archaism and at the same time the subtle rhythms of the Byzantine tradition, transcribed moreover into the melodious linear flow of the most refined Gothic tradition. In the delicate, little-differentiated relief the sculptor has no difficulty in creating the plurality of the group; the cadenced movement of the disciples carrying the body of the Baptist is vividly suggested by the succession of folds of the ample drapery that swathes them and that, in its sickle-shaped undulation, hints at the breathless grief and dismayed fear that accompany the tragedy.