GHIBERTI, LORENZO (1378-1455). Italian
sculptor, was bom at Florence in 1378. He learned the trade of a goldsmith under
his father Ugoccione, commonly called Cione, and his stepfather Bartoluccio; but
the goldsmith's art at that time included all varieties of plastic arts, and
required from those who devoted themselves to its higher branches a general and
profound knowledge of design and colouring. In the early stage of his artistic
career Ghiberti was best known as a painter in fresco, and when Florence was
visited by the plague he repaired to Rimini, where he executed a highly prized
fresco in the palace of the sovereign Pandolfo Malatesta. He was recalled from
Rimini to his native city by the urgent entreaties of his stepfather Bartoluccio,
who informed him that a competition was to be opened for designs of a second
bronze gate in the baptistery, and that he would do wisely to return to Florence
and take part in this great artistic contest. The subject for the artists was
the sacrifice of Isaac; and the competitors were required to observe in their
work a certain conformity to the first bronze gate of the baptistery, executed
by Andrea Pisano about 100 years previously. Of the six designs presented by
different Italian artists, those of Donatcllo, Bninelleschi and Ghiberti were
pronounced the best, and of the three Brunellcschi's and Ghiberti's superior to
the third, and of such equal merit that the ihirty-four judges with whom the
decision was left entrusted the execution of the work to the joint labour of the
two friends. Brunelleschi, however, withdrew from the contest. The first of his
two bronze gates for the baptistery occupied Ghiberti twenty years.
Ghiberti brought to his task a deep religious feeling and the striving after a
high poetical ideal which are not to be found in the works of Donatcllo, though
in power of characterization the second sculptor often stands above the first.
Like Donatcllo, he seized every opportunity of studying the remains of ancient
art; but he sought and found purer models for imitation than Donatcllo, through
his excavations and studies in Rome, had been able to secure. The council of
Florence, which met during the most active period of Ghiberti's artistic career,
not only secured him the patronage of the pontiff, who took part in the council,
but enabled him, through the important connexions which he then formed with the
Greek prelates and magnates assembled in Florence, to obtain from many quarters
of the Byzantine empire the precious memorials of old Greek art, which he
studied with untiring zeal. The unbounded admiration called forth by Ghiberti's
first bronze gate led to his receiving from the chiefs of the Florentine gilds
the order for the second, of which the subjects were likewise taken from the Old
Testament. The Florentines gazed with especial pride on these magnificent
creations, which must still have shone with all the brightness of their original
gilding when, a century later, Michelangelo pronounced them worthy to be the
gates of paradise. Next to the gates of the baptistery Ghiberti's chief works
still in existence are his three statues of St John the Baptist, St Matthew and
St Stephen, executed for the church of Or San Michele. In the bas-relief of the
coffin of St Zenobius, in the Florence cathedral, Ghiberti put forth much of his
peculiar talent, and though he did not, as is commonly stated, execute entirely
the painted glass windows in that edifice, he furnished several of the designs,
and did the same service for a painted glass window in the church of Or San
Michele. He died at the age of 77.
We are better acquainted with Ghiberti's theories of art than with those of most
of his contemporaries, for he left behind him a commentary, in which, besides
his notices of art, he gives much insight into his own personal character and
views. Every page attests the religious spirit in which he lived and worked. Not
only does he aim at faithfully reflecting Christian truths in his creations, he
regards the old Greek statues with a kindred feeling, as setting forth the
highest intellectual and moral attributes of human nature. He appears to have
cared as little as Donatello for money.
Benvenuto Cellini's criticism on Ghiberti that in his creations of plastic art
he was more successful in small than in large figures, and that he always
exhibited in his works the peculiar excellences of the goldsmith's quite as much
as those of the sculptor's art, is after all no valid censure, for it merely
affirms that Ghiberti faithfully complied with the peculiar conditions of the
task imposed upon him. More frequent have been the discussions as to the part
played by perspective in his representations of natural scenery. These acquired
a fresh importance since the discovery of the data, from which it appeared that
Paolo Ucccllo, who had commonly been regarded as the first great master of
perspective, worked for several years in the studio or workshop of Ghiberti, so
that it became difficult to determine to what extent Uccello's successful
innovations in perspective were due to Ghiberti's teaching.
Cicognara's criticism on Ghiberti, in his History of Sculpture, has supplied the
chief materials for the illustrative text of Lasinio's series of engravings of
the three bronze gates of the baptistery. They consist of 42 plates in folio,
and were published at Florence by Bardi in 1821. Still more vivid
representations are the reproductions on a very large scale by the photographic
establishment of Alinari. Both C. C. Perkins, in his History of Tuscan Sculpture
(1864). and A. F. Rio, in his Art chrctien (1861-1867), have treated Ghiberti's
works with much fulness, and in a spirit of sound appreciation. See also the
chapter expressly devoted to the history of the competition for the baptistery
gates in Hans Semper, Donatello (1887); the articles by Adolf Rosemberg in
Dohme's Kunst und KUnstler des Miltelalters (Leipzig, 1877); Leader Scott,
Ghiberti and Donatcllo (1882). In the Santmtung ausgewdklter Biographien Vasari,
ed. Carl Frcy, vol. iii. (1886), is given Ghiberti's commentary on art.
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