Ghiberti's Great Gates
1424 AD
1424 1424
11.14E43.47N
ART

FLORENCE, ITALY
	How would you like to spend almost 50 years of your life making two sets of doors? That is what Lorenzo Ghiberti did, and those doors made him famous.
	Ghiberti was born in Florence, Italy, and learned goldsmithing from his stepfather. When the black plague struck the city in 1400, he moved to Romagna where he helped paint frescoes. But he returned to Florence when his stepfather told him about a very special competition.
	In Florence is a beautiful eight-sided building called the Baptistry with four sets of double doors. One set of doors was made of sculpted brass panels by Andrea Pisano, who had lived about 100 years previously.
	But the Florentines decided that the other doors should be the same as Pisano's sculpted doors, so they held a competition.
	Ghiberti entered a year-long competition, which required him to create a door panel featuring the biblical character Abraham and his son Isaac. The artist who won would be hired to produce a full set of doors.
	Of the six competing artists, only Ghiberti didn't keep his work secret. Instead, he invited his friends to make suggestions.
	He depicted "The Sacrifice of Isaac," a remarkable technical achievement since with the entire panel was cast in one piece. He also showed Isaac nude, which was one of the first times during the Renaissance that an artist had used a male nude.
	When the entries were judged in 1402 the judges were stumped. They couldn't decide between Ghiberti and architect Filippo Brunelleschi. So Brunelleschi solved the problem. He generously said Ghiberti's sculpture was better than his and withdrew from the contest, letting Ghiberti win.
	Ghiberti and his assistants worked 20 years on one set of bronze doors, which were installed in 1424. The double doors had 28 sculpted panels, most of them featuring incidents from the life of Jesus.
	The success of these doors led to a request for second pair for another of the doors to the Baptistry.
	Ghiberti worked on second set for 27 years, from 1425 to 1452. A century later Michelangelo said these doors, featuring 10 scenes from Old Testament, were so wonderful they were fit to be the gates of paradise, so ever since they've been called the "Gates of Paradise."
