Ghiberti, Lorenzo

Ghiberti, Lorenzo (b Florence, c.1380; d Florence, 1 Dec. 1455). Florentine sculptor, goldsmith, and designer, one of the most important artists of his period. He came to prominence in 1401 when he competed successfully (defeating Brunelleschi, Jacopo della Quercia, and four other artists) for a commission, offered by the merchant guild, to make a pair of gilded bronze doors for the Baptistery of Florence. His competition relief of the Sacrifice of Isaac is in the Bargello, Florence. Work on the doors lasted until 1424 and in 1425 he was asked to make a second pair for the same building, which occupied him until 1452. Both sets of doors are divided into panels showing biblical scenes or figures in high relief. The two commissions had immense prestige, and Ghiberti's workshop became a kind of academy for a whole generation of artists, attracting some of the best talent of the day: Donatello, Masolino, and Uccello were among those who had at least part of their training there. Although the two sets of doors dominated his career, Ghiberti was involved in numerous other projects; indeed, he boasted that ‘Few works of importance were made in our city that were not designed or devised by my hand.’ He served on the committee in charge of the architectural works of Florence Cathedral, designed stained-glass windows, goldsmith's work, and reliquaries (none of his work in precious metals survives), and made three over-life-size bronze statues for the church of Orsanmichele: St John the Baptist (1413–17), St Matthew (1419–22), and St Stephen (c.1425–9). The St John was the first bronze statue of such size to be produced since antiquity. In addition to his own works, Ghiberti said he gave help to ‘many painters, sculptors, and stonecarvers’, for whom he made ‘models in wax and clay’.

Ghiberti was also a writer, leaving a lengthy incomplete manuscript entitled Commentaries. It contains a survey of ancient art based on Pliny and observations on the science of optics, as well as valuable records of Italian painters and sculptors of the 14th century, and also Ghiberti's autobiography, the first by an artist that has survived. The same interest in the new humanist ideals that is reflected in Ghiberti's writings also prompted him to collect classical sculptures. However, in spite of the prominent place that he occupies in the classical revival, his style was deeply rooted in the tradition of Gothic craftsmanship. His first pair of Baptistery doors was modelled on the pattern of Andrea Pisano's earlier doors for the same building, and the 28 panels (twenty showing episodes from the Life of Christ and eight depicting saints) have much of the spirit of International Gothic about them, with their emphasis on graceful lines, lyrical sentiment, and close attention to landscape detail. These traits survive in Ghiberti's second pair of doors, but they are here subordinated to the new principles of the Renaissance. The doors are divided into ten large panels in which episodes from the Old Testament are represented on carefully constructed perspective stages. As the reliefs were designed by 1437, they must rank among the most ‘advanced’ works of Florentine art of their time, particularly in the mastery of composition within a spatial framework. The fame of these doors has always stood high. Michelangelo's dictum, recorded by Vasari, that they were worthy to form the Gates of Paradise secured their prestige even in times less sympathetic to quattrocento art.