Resurrection of Christ

Not long after the Monument to Sir John Hawkwood, the Opera del Duomo commissioned from Paolo the designs for three stained-glass windows (the Resurrection, the Birth of Christ and the Annunciation destroyed in 1828) for the oculi of the drum of the dome, as well as the decoration for the clockface on the inner fa�ade of the Cathedral.

In the cartoons for the stained-glass windows, we find quite clearly the influence of Ghiberti and Donatello. And also, in the scene of the Resurrection much more so than in the Birth of Christ, where the composition is constructed according to a basically old-fashioned pattern, Paolo gave further evidence of originality: the dramatic event is transformed into a fantastic vision and this feeling of unreality is accentuated by the pure colours of the glass. In the middle of the composition is Christ, after the Resurrection, his arched body strongly three-dimensional; below him, the open tomb is shown in a perspective foreshortening that all scholars have praised as the first experiment of this kind on glass. On either side of Christ are the soldiers, with their armour displaying elaborate geometric decorations; each one of them wears a mazzocchio, the traditional round Florentine headdress, a detail that Uccello uses again and again in his paintings, shown from different angles and drawn with the most complex perspective views.