Lorenzo Ghiberti , of its true name Lorenzo di Cione , (born in 1378 with Florence - died in 1455 in the same city) was a sculptor Italy N of the Quattrocento, whose work falls under the vast movement of renewal of the Western art which will give rise to the Renaissance.

Biography

Lorenzo Ghiberti was the son of Cione di ser Bonaccorso, but his/her father died young person, and it is the second husband of its mother, the goldsmith Bartoluccio ( Bartolo di Michele ) who undertook his education. Lorenzo, regarding it as his/her true father, kept a great recognition of it to him, so much so that, until the sixty years age, it preserved the name of Lorenzo di Bartolo .

Lorenzo, thus made, like the majority of the Masters florentins of this time, its training in workshops of Orfèvre S. It will count among the first sculptor-goldsmiths of the Quattrocento who will associate the Sculpture closely and the Peinture.

In 1401, whereas it was completely unknown, Lorenzo Ghiberti gained the contest organized by the Arte di Calimala for the realization of the second bronze door of the Baptistère of the Dome of Florence, at the expense of six competitors, among which Filippo Brunelleschi, Niccolò di Piero Lamberti and Jacopo della Quercia. Thereafter, this competition for A-grade officials was considered, by the historians of art, like the founding document of the artistic Renaissance. Ghiberti will be, with Donatello, one of the initiators of a renewal of the sculpture allowing the natural representation of a great number of figures placed in a completely new space. Ghiberti was declared victorious contest unanimously, Filippo Brunelleschi being even withdrawn after having seen the work subjected by its rival. The November 23rd 1403, Lorenzo signed the contract by which it was committed working without interruption, starting from February 1st, with the door of the Baptistry until its entirety completion. The execution of the order, which will not dare to deviate from the Gothic diagram adopted by Andrea Pisano, the author of the first door, will be spread out 1403 with 1424. The contract provided that the artist was to deliver three per annum low-reliefs, but this clause was not respected. In 1407, one renewed the contract, obliging this time the sculptor to continue his work other than very other, realizing wages of 200 guilders per annum.

The artist will find his freedom of composition in the execution of the door of honor, started in 1425 and completed in 1452. This door will be made up of two series of five panels each one, representing biblical scenes. Michel-Angel will estimate that these doors will be worthy to open on the Paradise. The sculptor will use the prospect, and a less and less accentuated relief, to lay out a great number of characters on several plans. These doors that Lorenzo Ghiberti carried out for the baptistry of Florence, “admirable by the distribution and the framing of the panels, by their richness of invention, their fluid elegance and the noble feeling of the subjects”, were described by the critic and historian of art Henri Focillon, in his work on the Art of occident : “The report/ratio of the relief according to the distance pretended from the plans, the calculated passage of the sculpture in the round to the low-relief and finally with modelled almost flat of the medal, the rigorous escape of architecture, the suggestion in the bronze of an air landscape struck like a miraculous revelation popular imagination: the doors of the baptistry were from now on the doors of the Paradise.”

Ghiberti will carve several bronze figures for the vault Orsanmichele, of which a Saint Jean-Baptiste (1414) and a Saint Matthieu (1421/1422), saints of the commercial corporations the Arti . It will realize, between 1417 and 1427, the panels of the baptismal font of the baptistry of His, decorated Baptism of Christ and Saint Jean led in front of Hérode. The artist will write, starting from 1447, a treaty in three volumes called the Comments. The second, which will recall the life and the work of the greatest artistic personalities of, will constitute the first true story of the modern art.

Internal bonds

• Giorgio Vasari quotes it and describes its biography in Quickly the

External bonds

• Site giving a comprehensive view of the evolution of the sculpture lasting the Rebirth, and bringing precise details on Lorenzo Ghiberti