Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In sculpture, relief higher than bas-relief but lower than alto-rilievo; middle relief.
  • noun A piece of sculpture in such relief.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A middle degree of relief in figures, between high and low relief.
  • noun Sculpture in this kind of relief. See under alto-rilievo.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun half-relief; a middle degree of relief in figures, between high and low relief
  • noun sculpture in this kind of relief

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a sculptural relief between low relief and high relief

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Italian

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Examples

  • Especially valuable is a sarcophagus with a representation in mezzo-rilievo of the tragedy of the daughters of Niobe.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 15: Tournely-Zwirner 1840-1916 1913

  • Michael Angelo set himself to carve it out in marble in mezzo-rilievo, and so well did he succeed, that I remember to have heard him say that when he saw it again he recognised how much wrong he had done to his nature in not following promptly the art of sculpture, judging by that work how well he might have succeeded, nor does he say this boastingly, he was a most modest man, but because he truly laments having been so unfortunate that by the fault of others he has sometimes been ten or twelve years doing nothing, as will be seen presently.

    Michael Angelo Buonarroti Charles Holroyd 1889

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