DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0093
LORENZO GHIBERTI.
89
d’Arezzo heavy and ill-proportioned in the figures,
though well composed: in short, but three among
the number united the various merits of composi-
tion, design, and delicacy of workmanship, and
were at once preferred before the rest. These
three were the work of Brunelleschi, then in his
twenty-fifth year ; Donatello, then about eighteen ;
and Lorenzo Ghiberti, not quite twenty-three. The
suffrages seemed divided; but after a short pause,
and the exchange of a few whispered words, Bru-
nelleschi and Donatello withdrew, generously agree-
ing and proclaiming aloud that Lorenzo had ex-
celled them all, that to him alone belonged the
prize; and this judgment, as honourable to them-
selves as to their rival, was confirmed amid the
acclamations of the assembly.
The citizens of Florence were probably not less
desirous than we should be in our day to behold the
completion of a work begun with so much solemnity.
But the great artist who had undertaken it was not
hurried into carelessness by their impatience or his
own ; nor did he contract to finish it, like a black-
smith’s job, in a given time. He set about it with
all due gravity and consideration, yet, as he de-
scribes his own feelings in his own words, con
grandissima diligenza e grandissimo amore, “ with
infinite diligence and infinite love.” He began his
designs and models in 1402, and in twenty-two
years from that time, that is, in 1424, the gate was
89
d’Arezzo heavy and ill-proportioned in the figures,
though well composed: in short, but three among
the number united the various merits of composi-
tion, design, and delicacy of workmanship, and
were at once preferred before the rest. These
three were the work of Brunelleschi, then in his
twenty-fifth year ; Donatello, then about eighteen ;
and Lorenzo Ghiberti, not quite twenty-three. The
suffrages seemed divided; but after a short pause,
and the exchange of a few whispered words, Bru-
nelleschi and Donatello withdrew, generously agree-
ing and proclaiming aloud that Lorenzo had ex-
celled them all, that to him alone belonged the
prize; and this judgment, as honourable to them-
selves as to their rival, was confirmed amid the
acclamations of the assembly.
The citizens of Florence were probably not less
desirous than we should be in our day to behold the
completion of a work begun with so much solemnity.
But the great artist who had undertaken it was not
hurried into carelessness by their impatience or his
own ; nor did he contract to finish it, like a black-
smith’s job, in a given time. He set about it with
all due gravity and consideration, yet, as he de-
scribes his own feelings in his own words, con
grandissima diligenza e grandissimo amore, “ with
infinite diligence and infinite love.” He began his
designs and models in 1402, and in twenty-two
years from that time, that is, in 1424, the gate was