Lorenzo Ghiberti: The Gates of Paradise

Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti, one of the most influential artists of the early Renaissance, was born in Pelgao, near Florence, Italy, in 1378. He was educated by his father, Bartoluccio Ghiberti, a well-respected goldsmith in Florence. A child prodigy, he passed the examination to become a guild master goldsmith by 1398 and received his first commission shortly thereafter.

In 1400, he traveled to Rimini to escape the plague in Florence and received further training as a painter, assisting in the completion of wall frescoes at the Castle of Carlo I Malatesta.

In 1401, Lorenzo Ghiberti began work for a commission sponsored by the Arte di Calimala (Cloth Importers Guild) to make a pair of bronze doors for the Baptistery of Florence. Seven finalists, including Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia, and Ghiberti, worked for a year to depict in bronze the story of Abraham’s call to sacrifice his son Isaac. In the end, it came down to two artists, Ghiberti and Brunelleschi.

-The Sacrifice of Isaac- Brunelleschi

-The Sacrifice of Isaac- Ghiberti 

Brunelleschi’s version emphasized the violence, while Ghiberti devised a calmer, more lyrical composition. To our eyes, the Brunelleschi seems more powerful and “modern.” But Brunelleschi’s determination to cram as many attention-grabbing devices into one work may have seemed willful to 15th-century Florentine jurors. Certainly, Ghiberti’s craftmanship was superior; unlike Brunelleschi, who soldered his panel from many separate pieces of bronze, Ghiberti cast his in just two, and he used only two-thirds as much metal—a not-inconsiderable savings. The combination of craft and parsimony would have appealed to the practical-minded men of the Calimala.

Ross King's book, Brunelleschi's Dome, offers a fascinating view of the competition for the commission of the doors and subsequent competition between the two artists. Brunelleschi would turn away from sculpture and focus upon architecture, becoming one of the towering geniuses of the Renaissance... in many ways a model for the ideal of the "Renaissance Man" as exemplified by Leonardo and Michelangelo. 

Ghiberti's victory in the competition would eventually result in two sets of doors.  The original plan had been for the first set of doors to depict various scenes from the Old Testament, but the plan was later expanded to include scenes from the New Testament. These doors were to be placed at the Northern entrance to the Baptistery in compliment to Andrea Pisano's door on the South side of the Baptistery, completed in 1336:

-Andrea Pisano- South Doors of the Baptistery of Florence

-Lorenzo Ghiberti- North Doors to the Baptistery of Florence 

Ghiberti spent 21 years laboring upon the the doors, completing the work in 1424. In Ghiberti’s North Doors contain 14 quatrefoil-framed scenes from the life of Christ, the evangelists and the church fathers. In rendering the doors, Ghiberti adopted the linear grace of the early 15th century gothic style of Florence to the expressive power of the newer Renaissance style. The result was a heightened illusion of depth.

By the time of the completion of the Doors, Ghiberti was widely recognized as a celebrity and the top artist in this field. Along with the production of the Doors, Ghiberti worked upon designs for stained glass windows, acted as an architectural consultant on several projects, and created two major bronze sculptures of the Biblical figures of St. John the Baptist and St. Matthew.

-St. John the Baptist

-St. Matthew

These bronze figures were placed in niches in the Orsanmichele, along side sculptural figures by Nanni di Banco, Andrea del Verrocchio, Donatello, and Giambologna.

Ghiberti fame and reputation was such that he was showered with commissions, including one from the Pope. In 1425, however, he would be given his most important commission... that for a second set of doors for the Baptistery of Florence... this time for the East side of the Baptistery. He and his workshop (which employed many assistants including talented masters in their own right such as Michelozzo, Paolo Uccello and Benozzo Gozzoli) toiled for 27 years, upon the project... far excelling themselves... and in the process producing one of the greatest works of the Italian Renaissance. 

After completing the first set of doors for the Baptistery of Florence, Lorenzo Ghiberti embarked upon an intense exploration of new ways of forming pictorial space and lifelike figures to occupy it. Historians believe that Ghiberti encountered Leon Battista Alberti, a young humanist scholar who, inspired by the art of Florence, composed theoretical treatises on the visual arts. Ghiberti was also influenced by 11th century Arab polymath Alhazen, whose Book of Optics, about the optical basis of perspective, was translated into Italian during the 14th century.

Ghiberti incorporated these techniques into the Baptistery’s next set of bronze doors, considered his greatest work. Dubbed the “Gates of Paradise” by Michelangelo, each door portrays five scenes from the Old Testament. In the individual panels, Ghiberti used a painter’s point-of-view to heighten the illusion of depth. He also extended that illusion by having the figures closer to the viewer extend outward, appearing almost fully round, with some of the heads standing completely free from the background. Figures in the background are accented with barely raised lines that appear flatter against the background. This “sculpture’s” aerial perspective gives the illusion that the figures become less distinct as they appear farther from the viewer.

Ghiberti employed the recently discovered principles of perspective to give depth to his compositions. Each panel depicts more than one episode. In "The Story of Joseph" is portrayed the narrative scheme of Joseph Cast by His Brethren into the Well, Joseph Sold to the Merchants, The merchants delivering Joseph to the pharaoh, Joseph Interpreting the Pharaoh's dream, The Pharaoh Paying him Honour, Jacob Sends His Sons to Egypt and Joseph Recognizes His Brothers and Returns Home. According to Vasari's Lives, this panel was the most difficult and also the most beautiful.

Having said that, I must admit that my personal favorite panel is that of the Creation of Adam, the Creation of Eve, the Fall, and the Expulsion:

The figures are distributed in very low relief in a perspective space (a technique invented by Donatello and called rilievo schiacciato, which literally means "flattened relief".) Ghiberti uses different sculptural techniques, from incised lines to almost free-standing figure sculpture, within the panels, further accentuating the sense of space.

Michelangelo referred to these doors as fit to be the "Gates of Paradise" (It. Porte del Paradiso), and they are still invariably referred to by this name. Giorgio Vasari described them a century later as "undeniably perfect in every way and must rank as the finest masterpiece ever created". Ghiberti himself said they were "the most singular work that I have ever made". 

I must certainly agree with Michelangelo, Vasari, and Ghiberti.

*****

After 27 years of careful restoration, The Gates of Paradise (Michelangelo’s naming of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Renaissance work) were put on public display once again in September, 2012. The original resting place of the doors, the Baptistry of San Giovanni, has been donned with replicas since the restoration began. The doors will not be sent back to the Baptistry of San Giovanni, but instead they will be displayed at the Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore; they are to be kept in glass cases filled with nitrogen to prevent future damage.

Made more than 500 years ago, the doors weigh around nine tons and are made of bronze and layered with gold. There are ten panels, each representing a different story from the Old Testament - from the creation of Adam and Eve to the battle of David and Goliath.

During World War II, the “Doors of Paradise” were temporarily removed from the baptistery to spare it from damage. Over the years the doors had become blackened by wind, water, and pollution. The most serious damage occurred as a result of the devastating flood of Florence of 1966 when the Arno breached its banks. Six of its 10 panels were ripped away by the force of the raging muddy waters. The panels were re-attached, but it became obvious that a full-scale restorantion was needed.

Ghiberti’s masterpiece is one of several Italian art treasures to end up in a museum following restoration.

The four gilded bronze horses on the facade of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice were moved inside St. Mark’s museum in 1982 and replaced outside by copies.

In the heart of Rome, the 1,800-year-old bronze equestrian statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, badly eroded by pollution, was removed from its outdoor perch in 1981 atop the Capitoline Hill for restoration and is now a star of the Capitoline Museums. A replica of the statue adorns the square outside the museum.

"When you take an artwork from its original context, it is always a defeat," Cristina Acidini, a Florence museums official, told The Associated Press. However, she added, it is a "necessary process to save the original."