DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0097
LORENZO GHIBERTI.
93
of the republic, and represented by Ghiberti in ten
compartments, each two and a half feet square, be-
ginning with the Creation, and ending with the
Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba; and
he enclosed the whole in an elaborate border or
frame composed of intermingled fruits and foliage,
and full-length figures of the heroes and prophets
of the Old Testament, standing in niches, to the
number of twenty-four, each about fourteen inches
high, wonderful for their various and appropriate
character, for correct, animated design, and deli-
cacy of workmanship. This gate, of the same
material and weight as the former, was commenced
in 1428 and finished about 1444.*
It is especially worthy of remark that the only
fault of these otherwise faultless works was pre-
cisely that character of style which rendered them
so influential as a school of imitation and emulation
for painters. The subjects are in sculpture, in re-
lief, and cast in the hardest, severest, darkest, and
most inflexible of all manageable materials—in
bronze. Yet they are treated throughout much
more in accordance with the principles of painting
than with those of sculpture. We have here groups
of numerous figures, near or receding from the eye
* Authorities differ as to dates: those cited above are from
the notes to the last Florence edit, of Vasari (1838). See
also Rumohr, ‘ Italienische Forschungen,’ vol. ii.; and Ci-
cognara, ‘ Storia della Scultura Moderna.’
93
of the republic, and represented by Ghiberti in ten
compartments, each two and a half feet square, be-
ginning with the Creation, and ending with the
Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba; and
he enclosed the whole in an elaborate border or
frame composed of intermingled fruits and foliage,
and full-length figures of the heroes and prophets
of the Old Testament, standing in niches, to the
number of twenty-four, each about fourteen inches
high, wonderful for their various and appropriate
character, for correct, animated design, and deli-
cacy of workmanship. This gate, of the same
material and weight as the former, was commenced
in 1428 and finished about 1444.*
It is especially worthy of remark that the only
fault of these otherwise faultless works was pre-
cisely that character of style which rendered them
so influential as a school of imitation and emulation
for painters. The subjects are in sculpture, in re-
lief, and cast in the hardest, severest, darkest, and
most inflexible of all manageable materials—in
bronze. Yet they are treated throughout much
more in accordance with the principles of painting
than with those of sculpture. We have here groups
of numerous figures, near or receding from the eye
* Authorities differ as to dates: those cited above are from
the notes to the last Florence edit, of Vasari (1838). See
also Rumohr, ‘ Italienische Forschungen,’ vol. ii.; and Ci-
cognara, ‘ Storia della Scultura Moderna.’