Stiacciato

Stiacciato (Tuscan) or schiacciato (Italian for "pressed" or "flattened out") is a technique where a sculptor creates a very shallow relief sculpture with carving only millimetres deep.

To give the illusion of space a sculptor used the actual physical depth of a relief, from the most protruding parts of figures with the most plasticity to the flat background plane, which was gilded or otherwise decorated in a two-dimensional manner.

In rilievo stiacciato the physical depth may only measure a few centimeters or even millimeters and consist of merely incised lines and minute alterations of the plane.

In that way it is more similar to a two-dimensional monochrome painting or drawing than a three-dimensional sculpture, although undercutting of figures or objects in the foreground is used to gain plasticity.

[3] His other works in the genre include the so-called Pazzi Madonna (around 1420–30), The Feast of Herod for the Siena Baptistery (1423–27), which is not exclusively stiacciato due to its companion pieces by Lorenzo Ghiberti and others.

With The Ascension with Christ Giving the Keys to Saint Peter (1428–30), probably for the guardaroba of Cosimo de' Medici, he accomplished to create even atmosphere.