The Delivery of the Keys

Beyond the effects of plastic and spatial concentration, Donatello had given the schiacciato the creative function of producing effects of atmospheric continuum, of unlimited depth that the gradation of the thin planes brings back to visual unity. In this superb relief, a fundamental model throughout the fifteenth century for painters such as Filippo Lippi (as were Masaccio's frescoes), the organic harmony of the relationship between the reality of space and the reality of volumes is summed up in luminous vibration.