Radke, Gary M. (ed.), et al. The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece (exh. cat.). New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.
Review by STAN PARCHIN
July 12, 2010
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| Lorenzo Ghiberti (Italian, 1378/80-1455). Adam and Eve from Gates of Paradise (1425-52). Gilt bronze. H. 80 cm; W. 80 cm. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence. Image courtesy of Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. Photograph by Antonio Quattrone. |
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| Lorenzo Ghiberti (Italian, 1378/80-1455). Jacob and Esau from Gates of Paradise (1425-52). Gilt bronze. H. 80 cm; W. 80 cm. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence. Image courtesy of Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. Photograph by Antonio Quattrone |
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| Lorenzo Ghiberti (Italian, 1378/80-1455). David and Goliath from Gates of Paradise (1425-52). Gilt bronze. H. 80 cm; W. 80 cm. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence. Image courtesy of Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. Photograph by Antonio Quattrone. |
The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece, edited by Gary M. Radke, is the catalogue that accompanied a special exhibition at four American museums from 2007 to 2008. The volume's 184 pages and 269 color images describe the restored relief panels created by sculptor, designer and architect Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378/80-1455) for the monumental gilded bronze doors of Florence's Baptistery. Radke and his contributors devote individual chapters to: the priceless artworks' production, cleaning and conservation; Ghiberti's life, times, talent and technique; the complex relationships between patrons and artists; and collaborations and rivalries in Renaissance Florence. Particular attention is given to the show's seven marvelous masterpieces of Quattrocento (15th-century) sculpture, including two standing prophets and a pair of idealized heads from the doors' frame.
Competition for the Baptistery's Northern Doors
In 1401, Florence's Signoria (governing council) and merchant's guild sponsored a competition for the sculptural decoration of the northern doors of its Romanesque Battistero di San Giovanni, located across from the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. Trained as a goldsmith, Lorenzo Ghiberti entered the contest, along with Jacopo della Quercia (1374-1438), Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1466) and other artists. The Old Testament subject of the bronze panel to be cast was the young Isaac's sacrifice by his father Abraham. The scene was to be set within a customary and somewhat restrictive Gothic quatrefoil or four-lobed frame.
Ghiberti and Brunelleschi were the fiercest competitors. Brunelleschi's figures, angular and extreme in their verticality, reflected the prevalent Italian Late Gothic sculptural tradition. Ghiberti's refreshingly elegant modeling of Isaac, based on a classical torso recently discovered near Florence, presented a stark contrast to that of his Tuscan rival. Economy of production also figured largely in the judges' decision. Brunelleschi's work was fabricated in separate sections affixed to a bronze plate; Ghiberti's more sophisticated entry was uniquely cast in a single mold. The Signoria and merchant's guild decided in Ghiberti's favor.
After the northern doors' theme was changed from the Old to New Testament, Ghiberti toiled on the commission for 24 years. He enlisted the aid of architect Michelozzo di Bartolommeo (1396-1472), sculptor Donatello (ca. 1386-1466) and painters Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) and Benozzo Gozzoli (ca. 1420-1497), among others, to complete the portal's 28 panels.
The Baptistery's Eastern Doors
Work on the Baptistery's eastern pair of gilt bronze doors, a commission easily awarded to Ghiberti, commenced in 1425 and concluded in 1452. The master used the revived antique lost wax casting technique for their production. The doors' 10 panels illustrate more than 30 Old Testament episodes grouped into simultaneous narratives, from Adam and Eve's creation through King Solomon's encounter with the Queen of Sheba. Small statuettes of male prophets and female sibyls surround the biblical scenes. Portrait busts of Ghiberti and his son, Vittorio, unobtrusively join Roman heads around the doors' periphery.
The exhibition presented three restored panels from the Baptistery's eastern left door.
The Creation of Adam and Eve, Ghiberti's earliest of the three panels displayed, demonstrates the artist's keen understanding of human anatomy and nature. God the Father and other celestial beings observe the events unfolding beneath them.
Jacob and Esau, the Genesis story of a father's misplaced blessing, is divided into two separate scenes. Ghiberti's mastery of illusionistic depth and linear perspective is evident in the Roman arches' gradual recession into the work's background, a hallmark of Italian
Renaissance painting and relief sculpture in Florence.
Reinstallation
After the precious objects' transatlantic voyage, they were reinstalled in the Baptistery doors, sealed hermetically in a special case and placed on view in Florence's Museo dell'Opera del Duomo for future generations to admire.
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1476-1564) is reported to have called the Baptistery's eastern doors the Gates of Paradise, a reference to heaven's beatific entrance. The essays in Gary Radke's catalogue justify the Italian High Renaissance master's legendary praise of Lorenzo's Ghiberti's work some five centuries later.