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Lorenzo Ghiberti was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Florence, best known for his bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery. Learn about his life, works, style, and legacy in this comprehensive article.
- Overview
- Beginnings
- Gates of Paradise and early commissions
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Lorenzo Ghiberti (born c. 1378, Pelago, Italy—died December 1, 1455, Florence) early Italian Renaissance sculptor, whose doors (Gates of Paradise; 1425–52) for the Baptistery of the cathedral of Florence are considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian art in the Quattrocento. Other works include three bronze statues for Orsanmichele (141...
Ghiberti’s mother had married Cione Ghiberti in 1370, and they lived in Pelago, near Florence; at some point she went to Florence and lived there as the common-law wife of a goldsmith named Bartolo di Michele. They were married in 1406 after Cione died, and it was in their home that Lorenzo Ghiberti spent his youth. It is not certain which man was ...
Ghiberti returned quickly to his home city when he heard, in 1401, that a competition was being held for the commission to make a pair of bronze doors for the Baptistery of the cathedral of Florence. He and six other artists were given the task of representing the biblical scene of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac in a bronze relief of quatrefoil shape, following the tradition of the first set of doors produced by Andrea Pisano (1330–36). The entry panels of Ghiberti and of Filippo Brunelleschi are the sole survivors of the contest. Ghiberti’s panels displayed a graceful and lively composition executed with a mastery of the goldsmith’s art. In 1402 Ghiberti was chosen to make the doors by a large panel of judges; their decision brought immediate and lasting recognition and prominence to the young artist. The contract was signed in 1403 with Bartolo di Michele’s workshop—overnight the most prestigious in Florence—and in 1407 Lorenzo legally took over the commission.
The work on the doors lasted until 1424, but Ghiberti did not devote himself to this alone. He created designs for the stained-glass windows in the cathedral; he regularly served as architectural consultant to the cathedral building supervisors, although it is unlikely that he actually collaborated with Brunelleschi on the construction of the dome as he later claimed. The Arte dei Mercanti di Calimala, the guild of the merchant bankers, gave him another commission, about 1412, to make a larger than life-size bronze statue of their patron saint, John the Baptist, for a niche on the outside of the guilds’ communal building, Orsanmichele. The job was a bold undertaking, Ghiberti’s first departure from goldsmith-scale work; it was, in fact, the first large bronze in Florence. Ghiberti successfully finished the St. John in 1416, adding gilding in the following year. The technical achievement and the modernity of its style brought Ghiberti commissions for two similarly large bronze figures for guild niches at Orsanmichele: the St. Matthew in 1419 for the bankers’ guild and the St. Stephen for the wool guild in 1425.
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These last two commissions brought Ghiberti into open competition with the newly prominent younger sculptors Donatello and Nanni di Banco, who had made stone statues for Orsanmichele after Ghiberti’s first figure there. Ghiberti’s St. John still followed many of the conventions of the Gothic tradition. It combined small-scale details with a larger-than-life scale that made the figure appear overwhelmed by the drapery. Donatello’s St. Mark and St. George and Nanni di Banco’s St. Philip and Quattro Santi Coronati (“Four Crowned Saints”) were as large as Ghiberti’s figure but were designed with monumental proportions to match their scale. The boldness and strength of the weighty new classical figures constituted a challenge for Ghiberti, but he met it with success in his next sculptures, and maintained his preeminent position as a leading artist in Florence.
The 1410s and ’20s were years of flourishing expansion for Ghiberti and his firm. He had completed a great deal of the modeling and casting of the panels for the Baptistery doors by 1413, and he was in control of a smoothly functioning workshop with many assistants. In 1417 Ghiberti was asked to make two bronze reliefs for the baptismal font of the cathedral in Siena; he was so busy that he finished them, under pressure from the Sienese authorities, 10 years later. In 1419, when Pope Martin V was in Florence, Ghiberti was called on as a goldsmith to fashion a morse and mitre for the pontiff; unfortunately, those pieces, like other examples of Ghiberti’s art in rare stones and precious metals, have disappeared.
Learn about Lorenzo Ghiberti, an early Italian Renaissance sculptor who created the Gates of Paradise for the Florence Baptistery. Explore his life, style, and legacy in this comprehensive article from Britannica.
- Constance Lowenthal
Apr 2, 2014 · Lorenzo Ghiberti. One of the most important early Renaissance sculptors, Ghiberti is best known as the creator of the bronze doors of the Baptistery of Florence. Updated: Apr...
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Learn about Lorenzo Ghiberti, a prominent Italian sculptor and goldsmith of the Early Renaissance. Discover his masterpieces, such as the Gates of Paradise, his rivalry with Brunelleschi, and his influential writings on art history and theory.
- Italian
- Pelago, Republic of Florence
Sep 21, 2020 · Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455 CE) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and goldsmith whose most famous work is the gilded bronze doors of the Baptistery of Florence's cathedral.
- Mark Cartwright
Learn about the gilded bronze doors (1425–52) designed by the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti for the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. The 10 relief panels on the doors are among the greatest works of Early Renaissance sculpture.
Learn about the life and works of Lorenzo Ghiberti, a prominent Italian sculptor and goldsmith of the Early Renaissance. He created the famous Gates of Paradise for the Florence Cathedral and wrote a treatise on art history and theory.
