The Ascension

In the two pulpits of San Lorenzo an “archaic” approach is evident: scholars have noted the Romanesque ambo form of the pulpits and the representations simplified according to fourteenth-century schemes. I believe that the revival of these medieval motifs with such disconcerting genius is due to Donatello himself rather than to his patrons, as is shown by the free quotations of classical, Gothic and humanist elements, fused in a context of absolute originality. Once again cultural tradition, reality and imagination are equally employed to express feeling, outside any formula. Thus the “archaic” pyramidal composition of this scene, with the figures grouped within the grotesque spatial box bounded by the parapet in the foreground and by the wings formed by the buttresses (note the reduced scale of these in relation to the figures, another medieval element), leads back from the illusionism of naturalistic perspective to a sense of the primary structures of reality.