Lorenzo Ghiberti
Lorenzo Ghiberti (* around 1378 in Pelago ; † December 1, 1455 in Florence ) was an Italian sculptor , goldsmith , ore caster , architect and art theorist . His most famous works are the north portal and the so-called Paradise gate of the Baptistery of Florence Cathedral . His Commentarii , probably written from the 1430s or 1440s until his death, belong to writings by Cennino Cennini and Leon Battista Albertion the most important early art acts of the beginning Renaissance .
life and work
Ghiberti apprenticed to his stepfather, the goldsmith Bartolo Ghiberti, and, according to his autobiography , learned to paint in parallel. According to his own statements, he fled from the plague to Pesaro before 1400 and worked there for Malatesta IV. Malatesta .
The following year he went to Florence and applied with a test of his skills ( The Sacrifice of Isaac ) for a job advertised at the Florentine Baptistery . Among allegedly six competitors - u. a. Jacopo della Quercia and Filippo Brunelleschi - he was chosen to make the northern bronze door (2nd door, 1st door created by Andrea Pisano .). The work lasted more than 20 years and was created between 1403 and 1423, consisting of a total of 28 partially gilded reliefs, which are inserted in quatrains . The 20 main fields of the door contain representations from the New Testament . In addition to the motifs of the four evangelists and four church teachers , the door is adorned with rich ornamentation.
Soon after completing the first bronze door, he was commissioned to design the east portal, the so-called paradise door (third door), on which he worked for 27 years (1425 to 1452). After his death, his son Vittorio continued work on the framework. Michelangelo praised the door with the words "... it is worthy to adorn the gate of paradise". Scenes from the Old Testament are depicted in ten square fields , framed by rich ornamentation with numerous figures (e.g. putti and heads, including himself next to his son Vittorio).
As an architect and engineer, Ghiberti worked together with Filippo Brunelleschi as second master builder in Florence from around 1420 .
In addition, as a bronze caster, Ghiberti created the bronze statues of John the Baptist around 1414 for niches in the Orsanmichele church, and between 1419 and 1422 those of Matthew and St. Stephen (completed in 1428), which are considered the first large bronzes of the Renaissance. The bronze reliefs for the baptismal font of San Giovanni in Siena with the baptism of Christ (1424) and John the Baptist before Herod (1427), as well as the tombs of Leonardo Dati in Santa Maria Novella and Ludovico degli Albizzi in Santa Croce , also date from this period to Florence. In 1428 Ghiberti made the reliquary of St. Hyacinth and around 1440 the sarcophagus of St. Zenobius, decorated with reliefs, for the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. In addition to two small bells for the sacristy, which Ghiberti made in 1445, he also drew designs for its glass windows. He also created several glass windows for the Arezzo Cathedral .
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Lorenzo Ghiberti died at the age of almost 77 on December 1, 1455 in Florence, not without passing on his talent to his son Vittorio (1416–96).
rating
His art shows a connection between the international Gothic with its smooth lines of the soft style and the ideals of the Renaissance with its reception of antiquity and thus stands at the transition from the Gothic to the early Renaissance. Ghiberti's work is characterized by balance and harmony. He combines a pleasing, soft Gothic rhythm with the new ideals of the Renaissance. The Ghiberti workshop could become an important training center for Renaissance artists (including Paolo Uccello ).
Ghiberti was interested in many things and allegedly also worked as a painter of panel paintings and frescoes, of which no works have survived or have been identified. He was one of the first artists to have a proven collection of antiquities. He was also active as a writer and until the end of his life wrote the treatise I Commentarii , which is divided into three books , which contains valuable reflections on art and artists from a historical perspective from antiquity to the 15th century, as well as formulating ideas on art theory. It contains, for example, numerous considerations on optics and perspective and includes writings by Alhazen , Roger Bacon , Johannes Peckhams and Witelos .
See also
literature
Editions and translations of the Commentarii
- Lorenzo Ghiberti: I Commentarii (= Biblioteca della Scienza Italiana. Vol. 17). Edited by Lorenzo Bartoli. Giunti, Florence 1998, ISBN 88-09-21280-0 .
- Lorenzo Ghiberti's Memoirs (I Commentarii). For the first time according to the manuscript of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence completely edited and explained by Julius von Schlosser. 2 vols. Julius Bard, Berlin, 1912.
- Memories by the Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti. Translated into German for the first time by Julius Schlosser . Julius Bard Publishing House, Berlin 1920.
- Klaus Bergdolt : Lorenzo Ghiberti's Third Comment. Natural Sciences and Medicine in Early Renaissance Art Theory. Introduced, commented and translated. VCH, Acta Humaniora, Weinheim 1989, ISBN 3-527-17610-1 (also: Heidelberg, Universität, dissertation, 1986).
Research literature
- Amy R. Bloch: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise. Humanism, History, and Artistic Philosophy in the Italian Renaissance. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2016.
- Aldo Galli: Lorenzo Ghiberti. Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso, Rome, 2005.
- Carlo La Bella: GHIBERTI, Lorenzo. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 53: Gelati – Ghisalberti. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1999.
- Joachim Poeschke: The sculpture of the Renaissance in Italy. Volume 1: Donatello and his time. Hirmer, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-7774-5360-9 , pp. 61-62.
- Alexander Perrig : Lorenzo Ghiberti, the door of paradise. Why an artist goes beyond the scope (= Fischer-Taschenbuch. 3925 Kunststück ). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-596-23925-7 .
- Richard Krautheimer , Trude Krautheimer-Hess : Lorenzo Ghiberti (= Princeton Monographs in Art and Archeology. Vol. 31, ZDB -ID 419074-9 ). Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1956.
- Julius von Schlosser: Lorenzo Ghiberti (= Artist Problems of the Early Renaissance 3–5 = Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Philosophical-Historical Class. Session reports 215, 4, ISSN 1012-487X ). Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky AG, Vienna 1934.
- Julius von Schlosser: Life and opinions of the Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti . Prestel, Munich 1941.
- Leo Planiscig : Lorenzo Ghiberti. Anton Schroll, Vienna, 1940.
Literary appreciations
- Ernst A. Hagen: Artist Stories. Novel. Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1861 (the novel is based on Giorgio Vasari's biography ):
- Vol. 1: The chronicle of his hometown, by the Florentine Lorenz Ghiberti.
- Vol. 2: The chronicle of his hometown, by the Florentine Lorenz Ghiberti.
Web links
- Literature by and about Lorenzo Ghiberti in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ghiberti, Lorenzo |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian goldsmith, ore caster and sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1378 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pelago |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 1, 1455 |
| Place of death | Florence |