ROSSELLINO, Antonio
(b. 1427, Settignano, d. 1479, Firenze)

Pulpit: Funeral of St Stephen

1473
Marble
Duomo, Prato

In 1473 Antonio Rossellino was paid for three reliefs - the Presentation of the Virgin's Girdle to St Thomas (Madonna della Cintola), the Stoning of St Stephen and the Funeral of St Stephen - for the interior pulpit in Prato Cathedral, a project underway by 1469. These reliefs reveal his interest in the Antique, both in the heavy reliance on undercutting and in the deeply drilled passages of hair evident in the St Stephen reliefs. The decorated column in the Stoning of St Stephen must also have been derived from the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome.