DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0089
LORENZO GHIBERTI.
85
ing: we shall find, as we proceed, almost every
great name, and every important advance in art,
connected with it directly or indirectly, while the
competition which is about to take place among our
own artists, with a view to the decoration of the
houses of Parliament, lends, at the present moment,
a particular interest and application to this beauti-
ful anecdote.
Florence, at the period of which we speak, was
at the head of all the states of Italy, and at the
height of its prosperity. The government was
essentially democratic in spirit and form; every
class and interest in the state, the aristocracy, the
military, merchants, tradesmen, and mechanics, had
each a due share of power, and served to balance
each other. The family of the Medici, who a cen-
tury later seized on the sovereignty, were at this
time only among the most distinguished citizens,
and members of a great mercantile house, at the
head of which was Giovanni, the father of Cosmo
de’ Medici. The trades were divided into guilds
or companies, called Arti, which were represented
in the government by twenty-four Consoli, or
consuls. It was these consuls of the guild of mer-
chants, who, in the year 1401, undertook to erect,
a second gate or door of bronze to the Baptistery
of St. John, which should form a pendant to the
first, executed in the preceding century (1330), by
Andrea Pisano, from the designs of Giotto, and
E 3
85
ing: we shall find, as we proceed, almost every
great name, and every important advance in art,
connected with it directly or indirectly, while the
competition which is about to take place among our
own artists, with a view to the decoration of the
houses of Parliament, lends, at the present moment,
a particular interest and application to this beauti-
ful anecdote.
Florence, at the period of which we speak, was
at the head of all the states of Italy, and at the
height of its prosperity. The government was
essentially democratic in spirit and form; every
class and interest in the state, the aristocracy, the
military, merchants, tradesmen, and mechanics, had
each a due share of power, and served to balance
each other. The family of the Medici, who a cen-
tury later seized on the sovereignty, were at this
time only among the most distinguished citizens,
and members of a great mercantile house, at the
head of which was Giovanni, the father of Cosmo
de’ Medici. The trades were divided into guilds
or companies, called Arti, which were represented
in the government by twenty-four Consoli, or
consuls. It was these consuls of the guild of mer-
chants, who, in the year 1401, undertook to erect,
a second gate or door of bronze to the Baptistery
of St. John, which should form a pendant to the
first, executed in the preceding century (1330), by
Andrea Pisano, from the designs of Giotto, and
E 3