Lorenzo Ghiberti and the Florence Baptistery Commissions (1403–1455)

  1. Arte di Calimala announces Baptistery door competition

    Labels: Arte di, Florence Baptistery

    Florence’s cloth-importers’ guild (Arte di Calimala), responsible for the Baptistery’s decoration, announces a competition for a new set of bronze doors; entrants are tasked with producing a Sacrifice of Isaac relief panel as the trial piece.

  2. Competition panels for Sacrifice of Isaac produced

    Labels: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi

    Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi create bronze competition panels (1401–02). The surviving reliefs become key documents of Early Renaissance sculptural experimentation and are later preserved in Florence (Bargello).

  3. Contract signed for Ghiberti’s North Doors

    Labels: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Arte di

    Ghiberti receives the formal commission to produce the Baptistery’s second set of bronze doors (later known as the North Doors). Documentation places the commission contract on 1403-11-23, establishing the long-term project under Calimala oversight.

  4. North Doors program set: New Testament scenes

    Labels: North Doors, New Testament

    The project’s iconographic plan takes shape around New Testament narratives (plus Evangelists and Church Fathers) in 28 quatrefoil-framed panels, deliberately echoing Andrea Pisano’s earlier door format while pushing toward greater naturalism and narrative complexity.

  5. North Doors timeline extended beyond initial plan

    Labels: North Doors, production timeline

    By the late 1400s (documented by 1407), it is acknowledged that completing the doors within the originally envisioned timeframe is unrealistic, formalizing a longer production horizon for modeling, casting, chasing, and gilding.

  6. North Doors installed on Baptistery’s east face

    Labels: North Doors, Florence Baptistery

    After two decades of work (1403–1424), Ghiberti’s completed doors are installed on the Baptistery (recorded installation date: 1424-04-19). They initially occupy the prestigious east-facing position toward the cathedral.

  7. Commission granted for third doors: “Gates of Paradise”

    Labels: Gates of, Arte di

    Following the acclaim for the completed second doors, the Calimala commissions Ghiberti for a third set for the Baptistery, later celebrated as the Gates of Paradise. Work is generally dated 1425–1452.

  8. Design revised from 28 panels to 10 large scenes

    Labels: Gates of, Old Testament

    Early in the Gates of Paradise project, the planned 28-panel scheme is reduced to 10 large rectangular reliefs from the Old Testament, enabling more unified compositions and more ambitious spatial and perspectival effects than the earlier quatrefoil format.

  9. Ghiberti completes I Commentarii (Commentaries)

    Labels: I Commentarii, Lorenzo Ghiberti

    Ghiberti’s I Commentarii—a major Early Renaissance text blending art history, theory, and artists’ lives—is completed around c. 1447, illuminating his humanist interests and his understanding of artistic progress and classical models.

  10. Gates of Paradise produced over extended campaign

    Labels: Gates of, gilded bronze

    Ghiberti executes the Gates of Paradise in gilded bronze over a multi-decade campaign (1425–1452), combining relief depth, classical figure style, and architecturally structured space to showcase Early Renaissance approaches to narrative and illusion.

  11. Gates of Paradise installed at Baptistery’s east portal

    Labels: Gates of, Florence Baptistery

    Upon completion, the Gates of Paradise are installed at the Baptistery’s east entrance (1452). This installation triggers the relocation of Ghiberti’s earlier doors away from the east side, cementing the newer doors’ primacy in Florentine civic-religious display.

  12. Death of Lorenzo Ghiberti in Florence

    Labels: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Florence

    Lorenzo Ghiberti dies in Florence in late 1455, closing a career defined by the Baptistery door commissions that shaped the language and prestige of Early Renaissance bronze sculpture in Tuscany.

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Last Updated:Jan 1, 1980

Lorenzo Ghiberti and the Florence Baptistery Commissions (1403–1455)