Lorenzo Ghiberti

“ Now, after being created Pontiff in the year 1431, Pope Eugenius IV, hearing that the Florentines were having the doors of S. Giovanni made by Lorenzo Ghiberti, conceived a wish to try to make one of the doors of S. Pietro in like manner in bronze. But since he had no knowledge of such works, he entrusted the matter to his ministers, with whom Antonio Filarete, then a youth, and Simone, the brother of Donatello, both sculptors of Florence, had so much interest, that the work was allotted to [Pg 4] them. ”

“ Parri di Spinello Spinelli, painter of Arezzo, having learnt the first principles of art from his own father, was brought to Florence by the agency of Messer Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, and was received by Lorenzo Ghiberti into his school, where many young men were learning under his discipline: and since the doors of S. Giovanni were then being given their finish, he was put to labour on those figures, in company with many others, as it has been said above. ”

“ Lorenzo was the son of Bartoluccio Ghiberti, [1] and in his early youth acquired the art of the goldsmith, under the care of his father, who was an excellent master, and instructed him in such sort that Lorenzo, aided by his natural abilities, became a better goldsmith than his teacher. But delighting still more in the arts of design and sculpture, [2] he sometimes worked in colours, and at other times employed himself in the casting of small figures in bronze, which he finished very gracefully. ”

“ When Donato and Filippo saw the care and success with which Lorenzo had completed his specimen, they drew aside together, and, conferring with each other, decided that the work ought to be given to him, because it appeared to them that the public advantage, as well as individual benefit, would be thus best secured and promoted, since Lorenzo being very young—for he had not completed his twentieth year—would have the opportunity, while exercising his talents on that magnificent work, of producing those noble fruits of which his beautiful story gave so fair a hope. ”

“ The third room contains small bronze works by Tuscan masters of the Quattrocento. In the centre, Verrocchio's David (22) , cast for Lorenzo dei Medici, one of the masterpieces of the fifteenth century. Here are the famous trial plates for the great competition for the second bronze gates of the Baptistery, announced in 1401, the Sacrifice of Abraham, by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti respectively; the grace and harmony of Ghiberti's composition (12) contrast strongly with the force, almost violence, the dramatic action and movement of Brunelleschi's (13) . ”

“ For the fourth story of this compartment Lorenzo has chosen the appearance of the three angels in the valley of Mamre: these figures have a close resemblance to each other: the holy patriarch is seen in the act of adoration before his celestial visitors, his hands are folded, and the expression of his countenance is most life-like and appropriate. The servants with the ass, who are represented as awaiting Abraham at the foot of the mountain, whither he has gone to make the sacrifice of his son, are equally excellent. ”

“ Lorenzo has given to the Virgin an expression of terror and sudden alarm; as the angel appears, she turns from him in an attitude of infinite grace. Beside this representation is one exhibiting the Birth of Christ; where Our Lady is reposing in a recumbent position, with Joseph, earnestly regarding the shepherds, and angels, who are singing. On the opposite fold of the door, and at the same height with the last mentioned compartment, is one presenting a continuation of the story, and exhibiting the arrival of the Magi, with their adoration of Christ, to whom they offer tribute ”

“ In the distance, moreover, and executed in basso-rilievo, is seen the Almighty Father, demanding from Cain what he has done with his brother. Each of the compartments comprise four stories. In the third Lorenzo represented the patriarch Noah issuing from the ark, with his wife, his sons, his daughters, and the wives of his sons, together with all the animals, those of the air as well as of the earth: all these creatures are finished with such perfection of excellence, each in its kind, that it is not possible for art more effectually to imitate nature. ”

“ They consist of 42 plates in folio, and were published at Florence by Bardi in 1821. Still more vivid representations are the reproductions on a very large scale by the photographic establishment of Alinari. Both C. C. Perkins, in his History of Tuscan Sculpture (1864) , and A. F. Rio, in his Art chrétien (1861–1867) , have treated Ghiberti’s works with much fulness, and in a spirit of sound appreciation. See also the chapter expressly devoted to the history of the competition for the baptistery gates in Hans Semper, Donatello (1887) ”

“ The best was that of Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti, which had design, diligence, invention, art, and the figures very well wrought. Nor was that of Filippo much inferior, wherein he had represented Abraham sacrificing [Pg 201] Isaac; and in that scene a slave who is drawing a thorn from his foot, while he is awaiting Abraham and the ass is browsing, deserves no little praise. ”

“ Vasari means that Lorenzo continued to receive his salary till 1426, although Filippo had been appointed sole master of the works in 1423, as he himself relates in the sequel.
[4] How different was the treatment Ghiberti received from Brunelleschi, when the artists presented their models for one of the bronze doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni at Florence. The designs of Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Donatello, were considered the three best ”

“ And when his recall to Florence was offered him on unworthy conditions, he wrote back: “Can I not everywhere behold the light of the sun and the stars, everywhere meditate on the noblest truths, without appearing ingloriously and shamefully before the city and the people? Even my bread will not fail me.” The artists exult no less defiantly in their freedom from the constraints of fixed residence. “Only he who has learned everything,” says Ghiberti, “is nowhere a stranger ”

“ Technically—judged from the standpoint of workmanship in bronze—“The Creation Panel” is beyond criticism. Comparing it with a painting by Giotto, or, to take an artist of a later date, by Fra Angelico, we feel, however, that something is lacking. Though the subjects depicted are biblical, Ghiberti’s work lacks the spirituality which an artist working under the influence of Giotto, consciously or unconsciously, infused into his work. Italy in the fifteenth century had realized the fallacies that underlay the narrow creed of the Church and the too rigid philosophy of the Scholastics. ”

“ It is as a painter that Giotto is best known, and as such he did much to awaken art from its unnatural and stiff forms, and to introduce realism. “Campanile,” kăm-pa-nēˈla.
“Ghiberti,” gee-bĕrˈtee. (1378-1455.) He learned the trade of a goldsmith, but at that time the goldsmith’s art included others, especially designing and coloring. At first Ghiberti was a fresco painter, but was called to sculpture by his success with the bronze doors over which he spent most of his life. “San Giovanni,” jo-vänˈnee.
P. 142, c. 2.—“Donatello” do-nä-tĕlˈo. (1383-1466.) He was a native of Florence. ”

“ The doors, as I say, were finished in 1424, after twenty-one years' labour, and the Signoria left the Palazzo Vecchio in procession to see their installation. In the number and shape of the panels Pisano set the standard, but Ghiberti's work resembled that of his predecessor very little in other ways, for he had a mind of domestic sweetness without austerity and he was interested in making everything as easy and fluid and beautiful as might be. His thoroughness recalls Giotto in certain of his frescoes. The impression left by Pisano's doors is akin to that left by reading the New Testament ”

“ I believe he derived advantage from having long dedicated his attention to modelling [Pg 73] and sculpture, a practice which renders relief easy to the painter, beyond what is generally conceived. Ghiberti had been his master in this branch, who at this time was unrivalled in design, in composition, and in giving animation to his figures. Colouring, which he yet wanted, was taught him by Starnina, and in this also he became a very celebrated master. Thus uniting in himself the excellences of two schools, he produced a new style, not indeed exempt from dryness, nor wholly faultless ”

“ Accidentally, a few prints of the works of Giotto, a few casts from those of Ghiberti, fall into their hands, and they see in these something they never saw before—something intensely and everlastingly true. They examine farther into the matter; they discover for themselves the greater part of what I have laid before you to-night; they form themselves into a body, and enter upon that crusade which has hitherto been victorious. ”

“ Ghiberti treats the subject pictorially, placing his figures in a landscape, and lavishing attendant angels. Della Quercia, in obedience to the stricter laws of sculpture, restrains his composition to the three chief persons, and brings them into close connection. While Adam reclines asleep in a beautiful and highly studied attitude, Eve has just stepped forth behind him, and God stands robed in massive drapery, raising His hand as though to draw her into life. ”

“ A few Americans were allowed to enter, and an occasional foreigner was received as a favor. In the pension phraseology the English were "we," their transatlantic cousins "the Americans," and all the rest "foreigners." As Lorenzo's bell ceased many doors opened, and from the various quarters into which the old Ghibelline residence had for its present purposes been divided—from high rooms overlooking the river and adorned with frescos to low-browed cells in the attic under the eaves ”

“ A medium of this kind had no darkening effect on the colours, but left their luminosity and clarity unimpaired. Still more important was the reform effected by Giotto in Italian painting with respect to selection of subjects and their manner of presentment. Ghiberti himself praises Giotto for having abandoned the rude style of the Greeks, and without leaning in this direction to an excess having introduced the truth and grace of Nature. Boccaccio, too, says of him that Nature is unable to create anything [Pg 323] that Giotto could not imitate to the point of deception [351] . ”

“ The Sienese were mad with delight, and the artists rushed to worship this divine relic of antiquity—questa tanta maraviglia e tanta arte, as Ghiberti, the teller of the tale, calls it—which was finally carried in state to the fountain and enthroned upon it. But things went badly with the Republic; factions ran riot, famine and pestilence ravaged the city. The Twelve who now ruled were less liberal and more ignorant than the Nine, and at length a worthy citizen in the Senate declared that such idolatry was forbidden by the Christian faith ”

“ At any rate, they are imbued with his genius, and bear the strongest affinity to his sculptures at Pisa, Siena, and Bologna. To estimate the influence they exercised over the arts of sculpture and painting in Italy would be a difficult task. Duccio and Giotto studied here; Ghiberti closely followed them. Signorelli and Raphael made drawings from their compositions. And the spirit which pervades these sculptures may be traced in all succeeding works of art. It is not classic; it is modern, though embodied in a form of beauty modelled on the Greek. ”

“ John possesses the bronze doors, so beautiful in their workmanship: that facing St. Maria del Fiore executed, when but twenty years old, by Ghiberti, whose model was preferred to those of Donatelli and Brunelleschi, and of which Michael Angelo said, that it was worthy to be the portal of paradise. On either side of this door hang, as a trophy, chains once belonging to the gates of Pisa, and suspended here in memorial of the victory gained over Pisa by the Florentines in the year 1362. ”

“ Itself a subordinate art, without real vitality, without deep roots in the civilization, sculpture was destined to remain the unsuccessful pupil of the antique, and the unsuccessful rival of painting; but sculpture had for its mission to prepare the road for painting and to prepare painting for antique influence, and the noblest work of Ghiberti and Donatello was Masaccio, as the most lasting glory to the Pisani had been Giotto. ”

“ And now he turns away from abstract conceptions on this deep problem to concrete matters—to the actual men who have carved and painted the forms he loves; and he brings up the memories of Nicolo the Pisan sculptor, and of the painter Cimabue, and goes on to speak of Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo. Alas! their ghosts are watching their peeling frescoes, their blistered or whitewashed works. He recalls the names of many a draughtsman and craftsman whose works are left to stealers and dealers. Suddenly the poet remembers the grudge he has against Giotto. ”

“ Politian wrote poems in Italian as well as Latin, from which we may infer that in Lorenzo’s circle it was possible to give a realistic picture of the passionate life of the lower{354} classes. His gipsy’s love-song [803] is one of the earliest products of that wholly modern tendency to put oneself with poetic consciousness into the position of another class. This had probably been attempted for ages with a view to satire, [804] and the opportunity for it was offered in Florence at every carnival by the songs of the maskers. ”