The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300126158 ISBN 13: 9780300126150

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2007

Synopsis

A rich account of the giant bronze doors so exquisite that Michelangelo proclaimed them suitable to serve as the “Gates of Paradise”

In 1452, Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti unveiled a masterpiece that had been a quarter-century in the making: ten bronze panels depicting intricate scenes from the Old Testament. The monumental gilded bronze doors (each more than 15 feet tall) were designed for the Baptistery in the Piazza del Duomo in Florence. Centuries of admirers have considered “The Gates of Paradise” one of the great masterworks of Western art. This extensively illustrated book displays the full glory and elaborate details of many of the newly restored bronze panels, the extraordinary work of the conservators and restorers who cleaned the priceless doors. In a series of fascinating chapters, expert contributors capture Ghiberti’s world, his remarkable talent at representing human emotion in rich illusionistic settings, the relationships between Renaissance patrons and artists, and the collaborations and rivalries among artists. Other chapters explore the challenging craft of bronze sculpture, Ghiberti’s casting and finishing techniques, and the painstaking process involved in documenting and restoring the treasured doors. A chronology of Ghiberti’s life completes this lavishly produced volume.   

About this title

About the Author:

Gary M. Radke is Dean’s Professor of the Humanities, Syracuse University. He is editor of a book on Verrocchio’s David and co-author of  Art, Power, and Patronage in Renaissance  Florence, among many other publications on Italian Renaissance art.

From Booklist:

Created between 1425 and 1452, Lorenzo Ghiberti's series of bronze relief panels for the east doors of the Florence Baptistery are a touchstone of Western art, influencing sculptors and painters throughout the Renaissance and beyond. Surprisingly little scholarship has been done on the panels, however, in part because for centuries they were covered almost beyond recognition by layers of accumulated grime. Restored in the 1950s, they were damaged in 1966 by the flood of the Arno and subsequently removed from public view once again. It's that woeful state of affairs—combined with a current American tour of several of the re-restored panels—that makes Radke's thoughtful and beautifully illustrated volume so welcome. Erudite yet accessible essays illuminate Ghiberti's quest for the original commission (beating out his great rival, Filippo Brunelleschi, architect of the nearby Duomo), his painstaking work processes, his selective use of perspective, and the ingenious, often emotional ways in which he interpreted the Old Testament stories that the panels illustrate. Nance, Kevin

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0300126158
• ISBN 13: 9780300126150
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 184
• Editor: Radke Gary M.