Reliefs of the Choir Enclosure

The motif of the figure standing out in flattened or low relief against a flat, framed background had been taken up from classical examples in the Middle Ages, and then renewed by 15th-century artists of "rhythmic classicism". We have seen what different interpretations, of dynamic and spiritual tension, Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia gave of it, and how it lay at the basis of Michelangelo's "Madonna della Scala". When Bandinelli and his collaborators, such as Bandini, applied it to the decoration of the Florentine Choir from 1547 onwards, the expressive possibilities of dramatic contrast between the spirit and the shell that encloses and constrains it are completely ignored. What remains is a play of mimic counterpoints and virtuoso interlocking; a play that is often feeble, and only at best redeemed by a conceited Mannerist bizarreness.