Tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal: a putto.

In the sculpture of Antonio Rossellino the imitation of reality takes on a character of serene and incisive clarity: the physical and psychological definition is «prosaic» (E. Cecchi), but of a frank and dense prose, without falling into analytical self-indulgence. In the scenographic space of the funerary monument, the figures move with simple ease in gestures that touch, without underlining it, the conventional rhetoric of feelings. And they are figures in which the veristic «cast» manages to dissolve into naturalness. Between Bernardo's ideal truth, Desiderio's sensitive tremor and the neo-medieval crystallisation of Mino da Fiesole and Agostino di Duccio, the cordial naturalism of Antonio, which would influence Benedetto da Majano, is perhaps the highest expression of a cultural moment of spontaneous agreement between phenomenal reality and formal measure, free of cultural restraints.