Italian Renaissance: Lorenzo Ghiberti

Masterpieces of Lorenzo Ghiberti

Lorenzo Ghiberti (Florence, 1378 - Florence, December 1, 1455) was an Italian artist of the early Renaissance best known for works in sculpture and metalworking.

With Masolino da Panicale and Michelozzo, Ghiberti had a fundamental role in the spread of the renaissance language. They had a high regard for the previous gothic culture, but they corrected it and subjugated it to the principle of movement: in its deep figures with the elegant lines of the late gothic with the beauties of the Hellenistic knots, in the same way it fuses the late gothic naturalism with the renaissance archaeological taste, inserting its figures in scenes constructed with one perspective more intuitive that real.

Notable Works

Lorenzo Ghiberti 1403-1424 North Doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence. He won the commission in a contest with Brunelleschi, designing a small engraving of The Sacrifice of Isaac . These gilded bronze doors have 28 panels, each depicting a biblical scenes from the New Testament.
1414-1416 St. John the Baptist, a bronze statue of the patron Saint of Florence, stands in an exterior niche of the Orsanmichele.
1425-1452 East Doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence. Doors with 10 panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament. According to Vasari, Michelangelo referred to them as The Gates of Paradise.
1447-1455 I Commentari, in three books. Includes his commentaries on Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder, biographies of other artist and his autobiography. This is the first known autobiography of an artist.

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It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Italian Renaissance".