Lorenzo Ghiberti's Commentaries, which he wrote during the last years
of his life, are the primary source for reconstructing his artistic
career and biography as well as a priceless document for the study of
mediaeval art.
The son of the Florentine goldsmith Bartoluccio di
Michele, in 1400 he left his native city to go to Pesaro where, with a
painter friend, he decorated a room in the Malatesta family palace. He
returned to Florence in 1401 in time to take part in the competition
for the realisation of the second door of the Baptistery, which he won
with the famous panel of the Sacrifice of Isaac (National Museum of the
Bargello, Florence), carried out in an extremely refined technique and
style and containing noticeable Tuscan Gothic traditional motifs
diluted with studies of classical art. The sculptor's victory led him
to winning the commission for the entire door in 1402, which he
illustrated with scenes from the New Testament and took him until 1424
to complete. In the meantime he registered with the Silk Guild (1409).
During the twenty years it took to complete the door, Ghiberti's
workshop became an important centre of study for many of the most
prominent artists in Florence. These were the years of his complete
adhesion to the models of international Gothic style, which he was also
to translate into his St. John the Baptist, a monumental work
commissioned in 1412 by the Guild of the Calimala for its pilaster on
the exterior of the Church of Orsanmichele. A sculpture that seems to
be the result of a transfer of the proportions required for a piece of
goldsmithery, but on a larger scale. Between 1419 and 1423 he carried
out the statue of St. Matthew for the pilaster of the Guild of
Exchange, again on the exterior of Orsanmichele; here he appears to
have gone beyond the style used for the St. John and tried to arrive at
a greater solidity and compositional synthesis.
In the meantime he continued to work on the two reliefs for the
Baptismal font in Siena, which he started in 1417 and took him over a
decade to complete. During the period in which he was completing the
finishing touches to his first door, documents mention that he was also
extremely busy as a goldsmith, carrying out prestigious commissions. He
registered with the Company of Paintersof St. Luke in 1423 and then
with the Guild of Masters of Stone and Wood in 1427.
In 1425 Ghiberti
was also entrusted with the commission for the last door of the
Florentine Baptistery (the so-called Door of Paradise), decorated with
ten square panels illustrating scenes from the Old Testament. Only a
brilliant goldsmith was capable of carrying out such a monumental work,
where the refined Gothic style, always to be the most authentic
characteristic of his style, was accompanied by an application of the
rules of perspective according to the latest ideas introduced by the
Renaissance. The construction yard for the Door of Paradise stayed open for twenty
seven years, right up until 1452, though in the meantime the artist was
also busy on various other commissions, including the burial stone of
Fra' Leonardo Dati, carried out for the Rucellai Chapel in Santa Maria
Novella in Florence between 1425 and 1427, the bronze statue of St.
Stephen for the tabernacle of the Wool Guild at Orsanmichele (1427-29),
the Ark of St. Zanobius for the chapel dedicated to the saint in the
Cathedral of Florence (1432-34) and the marble cornice for the
Tabernacle of the Linen Drapers, today preserved in the Museum of St.
Mark in Florence (1432-33).
His career continued to be extremely active in other fields as well,
and this included designs for the Cathedral - stained glass windows,
the tribunes in the chapels and three designs for the tambour of the
cupola - all of which were particularly demanding.
He wrote the three Commentaries in the last ten years of his lifetime.
The first concentrates mainly on ancient art and the third deals with
optical problems. The second however is the most important as it
contains a description of 14th century artists though, rather than
their biographies, it discusses their work, which is not only numbered,
but also technically and stylistically described and analysed
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