Chapter III (X.)
Of Low and Half Reliefs, the difficulty of making them and how to bring them to perfection.
§ 51 The Origin of Reliefs
Those works that sculptors call half reliefs165 were invented by the ancients to make figure compositions with which to adorn flat walls, and they adopted this treatment in theatres and triumphal arches, because, even had they wished to sculpture figures in the round, they could not place them unless they first constructed a standing ground or an open place that was flat. Desiring therefore to avoid this, they invented a kind of sculpture which they named half relief, and it is called ‘mezzo rilievo’ still among ourselves.