User:Carptrash/Italian Renaissance sculpture

Italian Renaissance sculpture is a body of sculptural work created in Italy beginning in Florence in 1401 with the competition for the doors for the Florence Baptistry, won by Ghiberti. Always this movement "was guided by the pole star of the antique."

Medallic art
Throughout the Middle Ages artists continued to create portrait medals based primarily on Greek and Roman precursors. In 1439 the sculptor Pisanelloproduced the first true Renaissance medal. Unlike his predecessors, Posanello created his original, not from carving wood but by working in wax. What his portrait of Emperor John VIII Palaiologos included was not only a "faithful rendering of the sitter's features, but also a "artistically complete composition within the circle." These were the characteristics that were to distinguish Renaissance medals for the following century and a half.