DANTE.] • OH1BEItTI, LORENZO. Of this sculptor, who makes an epoch in the history of Italian and modern art generally, the precise year of his birth is not known; for though Vasari states it to have been 1380, it ie more probable that it was rather earlier; and accordingly some of his later biographers have presumed it to be 1378. He was born at Florence, where ho received his first instructions in drawing from his stepfather Bartoluccio, who practised oreficeria; a branch of art at that time in high repute, and extending to designing all kinds of ornamental work in metals. He also acquired some practice of paint ing in his youth, and executed a fresco in the palace of Pando]fo Mala testa at Itimini, in 1401, the year following that in which he left Florence, on account (as he himself informs us in the memoir relative to the competition for the bronze gates of the Baptistery) of a pesti lence in the city, and the distressed state of affairs. We learn from the same source that ho applied himself with great diligence and ardour to this task, his mind being almost entirely engrossed by paint ing; but hardly had he completed it when a circumstance took place which proved the means of his signalising himself, not only as tho greatest sculptor of his own times, but as one whose works havo excited the admiration of after-ages. This was no other than the competition for a second pair of bronze doors for the Baptistery at Florence, worthy to accompany those executed by Andrea Pisano about 1340. This memorable competition attracted all artists of any eminence, and from among their number, seven, including Don atello, Brunelleschi, and Ohiberti, were chosen to make trial of their skill, the subject given them being the Sacrifice of Isaac, to be executed in bas•relief as a model for one of the panels. Of the designs produced on this occa sion only two have been preserved, namely those of Ohiberti and Brunelleschi, both of which are engraved in Cicognara's Storia della Scultura.' Neither of them is free from a certain stiffness in the attitudes, but Ghibcrti's exhibits greater elegance in the forms and more judicious composition : Brunelleschi himself not only felt the superiority of his rival, but generously avowed it, and refusing tot aka any share in the work, solicited that all the sculptures might be entrusts 1 to Ghiberti alone. These doors, which contain twenty compartments, or panels, filled with as many reliefs, consisting of scriptural subjects, besides a profusion of ornamental work in the intermediate spaces, obtained from Michel Angelo the well-known eulogium, that they were worthy to be the gates of Paradise. Yet a modern critle (Von Ituniohr), whose discrimination, as well as his intimate acquaintance with early Italian art, entitles his opinion to more than ordinary respect, says that although they display great invention and admirable skill, they in some respects fall short of those by Andrea Pisano, who treating his subjects with greater simplicity, and more conformably with the principles of sculpture, avoided the confused asid crowded appearance which prevails in those of Ghiberti. Tho latter, he goes on to say, give us the spirit
of painting working upon materials belonging to the plastic art ; so that in order to be fully appreciated and enjoyed, they ought to be looked upon as pictures rather than as mere sculptures—for an such their author evidently conceived them.
Remarks of a similar tendency have been made by others, who have objected to the attempt to give the effect of perspective and distance by menus of various degrees of relief as utterly futile, because the parts which are nearly in full relief must inevitably throw shadows on those next them, although these latter may be intended to represent objects at a considerable distance beyond them. On tho other hand these productions of Ghiberti display extraordinary genius, an atten tive study of nature, and a sadden emancipation from that formal traditionary style of design and composition which had till then been adhered to by the Italian masters of that period. An excellent cast of these remarkable gates is in the Renaissance Court at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham.
Ghiberti afterwards executed for the same building another pair of bronze doors, containing ten reliefs upon a larger scale, representing variona subjects from the Old Testament—those of the first door being entirely from the New. Being Gms limited as to their number, he endeavoured to render each history as complete as possible, by com bining in each compartment four distinct actions. In the first, for instance, be has introduced the creation of Adam, that of Eve, their disobedience in tasting the forbidden fruit, and their expulsion from Paradise--amountiug in all to a great number of figures. Among his other works may be mentioned the admirable bronze relief in the Duomo at Florence, representing San Zenobi bringing a dead child to life, and the three bronze statues of St. John the Baptist, St. Matthew, and St. Stephen, at the church of Or alp Michele in the samo city. He also painted oil glass and executed some of tho windows in the Duomo. Ho was even appointed Brunelleschi's coadjutor iu the erec tion of the cupola of the edifice just mentioned ; and was consulted by artists and patrons upon every important undertaking. The exact time of his death is not known, but it is supposed to have happened shortly after he made his will, which was dated November 1455, when he was about seventy-seven years old.
Several of the bas-reliefs of the second or larger door of the Bap tistery, namely, that facing the Duomo, have been engraved by Piroli for a work on the monuments of Modern Italy, previous to the time of Raffaelle ; and a very interesting kind of artistical biography of him, including notices of all his most celebrated contemporaries, has been published by August Hagen, under the title of ' Die Chrouik seiner Vaterstadt vom Florentiner Lorenz Ghiberti,' 1833.