http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Florence_Baptistery In 1401 Filippo Brunelleschi returned to Florence, attended the announcement Arte de Kalimala (plant tissue merchants) compete for two bronze reliefs ornament gate Florence baptistery. In competition with him was attended by Jacopo della Kvercha, Lorenzo Giberti, and several other artists. The competition, chaired by 34 judges, in which every artist should have given the performance of a bronze relief of the sacrifice of Isaac, last year .. The contest was lost Brunelleschi - relief Giberti surpassed its artistic and technical (he was spitting in one piece and has a 7 kg lighter Brunelleschi). However, despite the documented Giberti in his Memoirs unanimity in the selection of judges is the winner of its terrain, most likely some kind of intrigue surrounding the history of the competition (Manetti believes it should win Brunelleschi). Despite this the work of Brunelleschi not destroyed with the creations of other parties but retained (now the National Museum, Florence), apparently, still noting it as an unusually successful

The story of Brunelleschi s success begins with his failure . In 1401 the competition for a pair of bronze doors for Baptistery was announced (Web Gallery of Art . This was to be one of the greatest competitions at the age , and it pitted two of Florence s most talented young artists against each other : Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti . The competition asked each artist to submit design of cast bronze around the subject of the sacrifice of Isaac . Brunelleschi lost the bid . But this perhaps initial loss was the Renaissance s gain in that his later discoveries in architecture were to prove revolutionary . At the time of competition the Florence Cathedral was still unfinished . The problem was how to successfully bridge the enormous area of central tower without the use of flying buttresses , which were out of question because of their obvious incompatibility with the beautiful Romanesque marble exterior . Brunelleschi studied many ancient building projects in Rome such a Parthenon and suggested that a dome could in fact be built without the visual distraction created by buttressing . His answer was the implementation of classical vaulting techniques .Thus Brunelleschi s innovative design provided further evidence of the new sensibility of Renaissance art . Brunelleschi understood that the principles of buttressing were useful in spreading the enormous weight of a dome over a greater expanse thereby alleviating much of stress on
The defining moment in Brunelleschis life came when he lost a competition to create doors for Florences cathedral. The test was to create a low relief panel, showing Abrahams sacrifice of Isaac. The panel was to depict the moment of Gods intervention. Lorenzo Ghiberti, who won the 1401 contest, noted that there were seven competitors. Only Brunelleschi and Ghibertis panels survive. Ghiberti devoted 49 years of his life to carving two sets of doors for the Baptistry. His memory is immortalized by this achievement, but he is known for nothing more The south doors were done by Andrea Pisano and the north and east doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti.[1] The east pair of doors were dubbed by Michelangelo "the Gates of Paradise".

An important event in Brunelleschis life is generally credited with encouraging him in the direction of architecture. In 1401, a competition for creating a set of bronze doors for the Baptistery of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence was announced. Santa Maria del Fiore was very important to the city as it was considered to be its official church and symbol of the city. It also reflected republican ideals related to ancient Rome.(4) The competition theme was the Biblical story of the sacrifice of Isaac, which also reflected the city of Florence and its own sacrifices. The competitors were required to demonstrate their skills in representing the portrayal of the Biblical theme in a single panel made of bronze. As the competition narrowed, the judges were divided between two panels, that of Lorenzo Ghiberti (13781455) and the other by Filippo Brunelleschi. Lorenzo Ghiberti was a young unknown craftsman who remained as the single challenger to the well-established Brunelleschi. Though both related the same subject matter, the two panels were drastically different. The figures in Brunelleschis panel were dramatic and the picture plane was relatively flat. The panel was cast in multiple pieces and required a lot of bronze. Ghibertis panel, on the other hand, exhibited elegant figures and command of three-dimensional perspective. It was technologically more advanced than Brunelleschis because it was cast in a single piece of bronze. In casting a single piece of bronze it allowed for easier repairs and also did not weigh as much as a panel with multiple pieces of bronze.(5) For these reasons, among others, Ghibertis panel was chosen as the winner of the competition

Michelangelo likened the gilded bronze doors of Florence's Baptistery of San Giovanni to the "Gates of Paradise." The phrase stuck, for reasons that anyone who has seen them will understand. Combining a goldsmith's delicacy with a foundryman's bravura, sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti condensed the Old Testament into ten panels to produce one of the defining masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. Since their installation in 1452, the doors have withstood a variety of near-biblical catastrophes: a torrential flood, vandalism, overzealous polishing and caustic air pollution. When the doors were finally removed for restoration from the facade of the 11th-century octagonal Baptistery in 1990, they looked dull and grimy. But the worst damage was occurring almost invisibly. Diagnostic studies revealed that fluctuations in humidity were causing unstable oxides on the bronze beneath the gilding to dissolve and recrystallize, creating minute craters and blisters on the gold surface.

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The Baptistery Door Competitions

Florentine-born and goldsmth-trained, Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455) is the Early Renaissance sculptor who won the second competition in 1403 for a commission to create gilded bronze doors for the east side of the Baptistery of Florence Cathedral. The first competition, won by Andrea Pisano, was also for the east doors, but those doors created in the 14th century (Trecento or Proto-Renaissance) were moved to the south side when Ghiberti finished the new east doors.

The Gates of Paradise

Lorenzo Ghiberti 1452,gilded bronze Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Cathedral) Baptistery (East Doors) Florence, Italy

When Lorenzo Ghiberti won the competition, he faced tough Click here to see our competitors like Jacopo della Quercia and Filippo Brunelleschi, who gift shop. was famous for his invention of linear perspective. Lorenzo Ghiberti's door project took him more than 20 years to complete. Lorenzo Ghiberti executed 14 bronze reliefs featuring scenes from the life of Christ, Evangelists, and the church fathers, each scene surrounded by a quatrefoil design matching the design of Andrea Pisano's earlier doors. The Gothic style of Lorenzo Ghiberti with its swaying draperies began to change, however, even as the individual panels were completed. Lorenzo Ghiberti's later panels show an increased interest in spatial depth and a somewhat

more naturalistic figure style in which the figures are no longer quite so overwhelmed by masses of drapery.

The Gates of Paradise

This new art style of Lorenzo Ghiberti would be fully realized when he was chosen without competition to execute a third set of gilded bronze doors for the east side, doors which Michelangelo aptly named "The Gates of Paradise." These are marvelous works completed in 1452 for which Lorenzo Ghiberti is justifiably famous. In the 20 panels of The Gates of Paradise, Lorenzo Ghiberti made a complete transition from the outdated Gothic style with its swirling draperies to the Renaissance style in panels in which the figures are now completely naturalistic, their forms revealed by the drapery, not competing with it. The idealized figures appear to move freely within the pictorial space which recedes convincingly within an illusionistic, architectural framework based on Brunelleschi's linear perspective. Once again, the east doors were switched. Lorenzo Ghiberti's competition doors were then moved to the north side of the Baptistery when The Gates of Paradise were installed. Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise remain a popular tourist attraction today for visitors to Florence, who are delighted to see the small likeness of the great sculptor himself on the bronze doors. Lorenzo Ghiberti was influential in the stylistic development of later artists, most notably his own pupils, Donato Donatello and Paolo Uccello, and later Michelangelo Buonarroti. Brenda, Art Historian