Luca's work here is sweet and mild rather than strong, and the panels derive their principal charm from the angels, who, in pairs, attend the saints.

Above the door was placed, at the time of Lorenzo's escape, the beautiful cantoria, also by Luca, which is now in the museum of the cathedral, while above the door of the old sacristy was Donatello's cantoria.

Commonplace new ones now take their place.

In the semicircle over each door is a coloured relief by Luca: that over the bronze doors being the "Resurrection," and the other the "Ascension"; and they are interesting not only for their beauty but as being the earliest-known examples in Luca's newly-discovered glazed terra-cotta medium, which was to do so much in the hands of himself, his nephew Andrea, and his followers, to make Florence still lovelier and the legend of the Virgin Mary still sweeter.

But of the della Robbias and their exquisite genius I shall say more later, when we come to the Bargello.
As different as would be possible to imagine is the genius of that younger sculptor, the author of the Pieta at the back of the altar, near where we now stand, who, when Luca finished these bronze doors, in 1467, was not yet born--Michelangelo Buonarroti.