Lorenzo Ghiberti

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

Lorenzo Ghiberti on Gates of Paradise, Baptistery, Florence, self portrait.

Adam and Eve by Ghiberti.

Ghiberti was born in Florence. He first became famous when he won the in 1401 competition for the second set of bronze doors for the baptistry of the cathedral in Florence. Brunelleschi was the runner up. The original plan was for the doors to depict scenes from the Old Testament, and the trial piece was the sacrifice of Isaac. However, the plan was changed to depict scenes from the New Testament, instead.

To carry out this commission, he set up a large workshop in which many artists trained, including Donatello, Masolino, Uccello, and Antonio Pollaiuolo.

When his first set of 28 panels was complete, Ghiberti was commissioned to produce a second set for the remaining doorway, this time with scenes from the Old Testament, as originally intended for his first set. Instead of 28 scenes, he produced 10 rectangular scenes in a completely different style. They were more naturalistic, with perspective and a greater idealization of the subject. Michelangelo dubbed these scenes the "Gates of Paradise."

He was then commissioned to execute monumental gilded bronze statues to be placed within select niches of the Orsanmichele in Florence, one of Saint John the Baptist for the Arte di Calimala (Wool Merchants' Guild) and one of St. Matthew for the Arte di Cambio (Bankers' Guild). Finally, he also produced a bronze figure of St. Stephen for the Arte della Lana (Wool Manufacturers' Guild).

He was also a collector of classical artifacts and a historian. He was actively involved in the spreading of humanist ideas. His unfinished Commentarii are a valuable source of information about Renaissance art and contain an autobiography, the first of an artist. This work was a major source for Vasari's Vite.

The Gates of Hell of Auguste Rodin were inspired by the "Gates of Paradise."

[edit] I Commentari (The Commentaries)

After 1447 Lorenzo wrote the three books of I Commentari, a valuable source of information about Renaissance art. The third book is interrupted abruptly in the surviving copy. ^[1] This is the same text that Vasari used as a major source for his Vite. ^[2]

The first book is a history of ancient art. Ghiberti reinforces the view of Vitruvius that the artist needs an intellectual basis for his practice, and postulates that the art practitioner must have both a natural talent and formal instruction. He refers to drawing and perspective as the bases of painting and sculpture.

The second book continues the historical description with Giotto. Ghiberti covers the so-called Middle Ages, in which are included the first known artistic biographies, based on style, rather than anecdote. Ghiberti provides details about artists of the 1300s and 1400s. This book has been most useful to later historians because it contains descriptions of works of art otherwise undocumented. Ghiberti included his autobiography, the first surviving autobiography of an artist.

The third book is an attempt to determine the theoretical bases of the arts; its interest is concentrated in the optical. It contains the first use of a reticle to help an artist construct the human figure.

Two years before his death, Lorenzo Ghiberti was reported to go crazy. His last sculptures depicted homosexual sex, between male demons. the demons had gargantuan phalusses that tore through their partners rectums. Lorenzo started to worship these statues and masturbate to them.

[edit] References

^ Julius von Schlosse Lorenzo Ghiberti's Denkwürdigkeiten (I Commentarii), 2 vol. (1912)
^ (2003) Key Writers on Art: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century Edited by Chris Murray.. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-24302-5. .