GHIBERTI, Lorenzo, Italian sculptor: b. Florence about 1378; d. there, 1 Dec. 1455. He early learned from his step father, Bartoluccio, an expert goldsmith, the arts of drawing and modeling, and that of cast ing metals. He was engaged in painting in fresco at Rimini, in the palace of Prince Pan dolfo Malatesta, when the priori of the society of merchants at Florence invited artists to propose, models for one of the bronze doors of the baptistery of San Giovanni. The offering up of Isaac was to be executed in gilt bronze, as a specimen of the work. The judges selected the works of Donatello and Ghiberti as the best, but the former voluntarily withdrew his claims, givirif the preference to Ghiberti. After 21 years labor (1403-24) Ghiberti completed the door, and, at the request of the priori, executed a second, which occupied him from 1425-52. Michelangelo said of these, that they were worthy of adorning the entrance to paradise. During these 40 years Ghiberti also completed many other important designs, such as the bronze reliquary of Saint Zcnobius, the sepul chral monuments of Dati and of the Abruzzi.
The dryness of the school of Giotto appears in his early works; the later are in imitation of i the Greeks, and are marked by continually n creasing vigor and firmness. The reliquary and the baptistery doors of San Giovanni are, to this day, among the finest specimens of art in modern Italy. His work is inspired by the deepest religious feeling, and he succeeded in breaking down the narrow conventionalism that hampered the sculptor's art up to his time. Ghiberti also executed some excellent paintings on glass for the churches of Or San Michele and Santa Maria del Fiore. His (Commen tarii,' a work on Florentine art, is still pre served in MS. Consult Freeman, 'Italian Sculpture of the Renaissance' (London 1901); Perkins, 'History of Tuscan Sculpture' (Vol. 1, London 1867); Scott, L., 'Ghiberti and Donate (London 1882); Vasari, 'Lives of the Painters> (10 vols., New York 1912).