The Massacre of the Innocents

Highly sensitive to rhythmic values, Bonanno does not for that reason dissolve his dramatic inspiration into formal hedonism; on the contrary, in this scene, drawing strength from the wide empty spaces against which the figures stand out, it is expressed in a language incisive to the point of cruelty: particularly noticeable here in the deliberate contrast between the bedecked, mocking figure of Herod and the broken gesticulation of the other figures.