The Journey of St. Sigismund

In this relief, from the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini and datable to about 1454, Agostino certainly wished to give his own interpretation of Donatello’s atmospheric stiacciato: every detail, however, freezes into well-accented notations, into linear rhythms and caesuras, that is, into the pattern of a neo-Gothic narrative far removed from Donatello’s unity of cosmic breadth.