Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. Baptistery of San Giovanni - the embodiment of Romanesque architecture Doors of the Baptistery in Florence
The Baptistery of San Giovanni is an ancient building next to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiori in the Cathedral Square. Built in the 5th century, the baptistery was the place of baptism for almost all Florentines until the 19th century! Even the famous Dante Alighieri and representatives of the ruling circles of Florence - the Medici family.
History of the Baptistery of San Giovanni
The Baptistery of San Giovanni is rightfully considered one of the very first buildings in Florence. It is noteworthy that before the construction of the baptistery, a pagan temple of Mars, the main god of war in ancient belief, was located on this site.
The original building was built back in the 5th century. The Baptistery was consecrated in honor of John the Baptist and was intended for the baptismal rite of the Florentines.
Reconstruction
In 1059 the Baptistery of San Giovanni was rebuilt. The almost completely reconstructed baptistery opened its doors to the residents of Florence in 1129. At the same time, an altar was installed in a semicircular apse, and the building was decorated with marble.
Later, next to the baptistery, the main cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiori and Giotto's bell tower were built.
Modern times
Being on the main historical site of Florence - Cathedral Square, it is simply impossible to ignore the Baptistery of San Giovanni. One of the oldest buildings in the city is of great historical and artistic value.
Architecture of the Baptistery of San Giovanni
Externally, the baptistery looks quite modest, but its true asset is the incredibly beautiful gates on the south, east and north sides. And inside there are several real works of art.
Facade
The amazing octagon-shaped building in the Romanesque style looks quite restrained and has marble finishing in white and green tones. The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiori and Giotto's bell tower, built later, are combined with the baptistery in color and look very organic in a single architectural ensemble.
The octagonal shape of the baptistery has important religious significance. Each facet refers to one of the seven days of the creation of the world by God, and the eighth facet means baptism, when a person is, as it were, reborn.
Gates
Of particular value in the architecture of the Baptistery of San Giovanni are its famous gates: southern, northern and eastern. This number of gates is explained by the fact that baptism in the temple was carried out twice a year, and people who wanted to be baptized and gathered at the entrance gathered from almost all of Florence.
Photo: Kiev.Victor / Shutterstock.com
South Gate
From the south are the oldest doors, made by Andrea Pisano in the 30s of the 14th century. They are decorated with 28 bas-reliefs. Some of the bas-reliefs are dedicated to scenes from the life of John the Baptist, and some contain a symbolic image of the Fundamental Virtues.
North Gate
The northern gate was made in the period 1401-1424. another architect - Lorenzo Ghiberti. They also consist of 28 amazing bas-reliefs, but depicting scenes from the New Testament. On the northern gate the bas-reliefs are made in the Gothic style.
East Gate
The gate on the eastern side is most famous for its 10 gilded bas-reliefs. This gate was created later than the others - already in 1425-1452, by the same Lorenzo Ghiberti. The bas-reliefs tell biblical stories. A true work of art, the northern gate was called “the gates of heaven” 50 years later by none other than Michelangelo himself!
For safety, the eastern gate was moved to the Duomo Museum, located nearby on the same Cathedral Square. And the baptistery is currently decorated with an exact copy of them. So don't miss the opportunity to see the original of the stunningly decorated Ghiberti Gate in the museum!
Interior
The interior decoration of the Baptistery of San Giovanni is much richer and brighter than its external appearance. The walls and floor are also made of marble, and monumental columns are installed near each wall.
Photo: Vladislav Gurfinkel / Shutterstock.com
The main value in the baptistery is the delightful dome, decorated with mosaics from the 13th-14th centuries. Byzantine masters worked on the creation of mosaics. Its central part depicts scenes from the biblical Last Judgment with the figure of Jesus Christ.
Also in the baptistery there is an altar from the 13th century and a font from the 16th century. Unfortunately, the famous Baptismal Spring that was previously located here, described by Dante in The Divine Comedy, has not survived.
Also in the baptistery you can see the tomb of Antipope John XXIII, made by famous sculptors Donatello and Michelozzo, the sarcophagus of Bishop Ranieri and earlier sarcophagi from the ancient Roman period.
Another work of art kept within the walls of the baptistery is the statue of Magdalene by Donatello (15th century).
How to get to the Baptistery of San Giovanni
The Baptistery of San Giovanni is located in the Cathedral Square (Piazza del Duomo) next to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore) and Giotto's Bell Tower (Campanile di Giotto).
This square is easy to find - it is located right in the historical center of the city. And the tall reddish dome of the cathedral is hard not to notice even from afar!
Baptistery opening hours
The Baptistery of San Giovanni is open to the public:
- Monday to Saturday from 11.15 am to 6.30 pm;
- on Sundays and on religious holidays – from 8.30 to 14.00.
Ticket price
It is not possible to purchase a separate ticket to the Baptistery of San Giovanni as of 2019. If you decide to see the beautiful creation inside, then you need to purchase a single ticket to explore the cathedral complex for 18 Euros.
The ticket price includes a visit to the baptistery, Giotto's bell tower, the remains of the ancient church of Santa Reparata and an ascent to the observation deck of the cathedral dome.
A single ticket can be purchased Tickets can be purchased opposite the north gate of the Baptistery at the Centro Arte e Cultura, or in advance on the official website of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiori www.ilgrandemuseodelduomo.it.
Visit also
Next to the Baptistery of San Giovanni there are also the equally famous Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiori and Giotto's Bell Tower, which you can climb and take in the entire city.
The nearby Duomo Museum is also worth a visit. There are the original gates of the baptistery, various relics and sculptures from the cathedral and bell tower, placed there for safekeeping. Visiting the main cathedral is free.
Excursions in Florence
If you want something more interesting than the traditional walk around the city on a map, then try a new format for sightseeing. In modern times, unusual excursions from local residents are becoming increasingly popular! After all, who knows the history and most interesting places of Florence better than a local resident?
You can view all excursions and choose the most intriguing one on the website.
Even in ancient times, there were special premises for baptism - baptisteries. They were attached to the church or erected as a separate building. Baptisteries have been known since the 4th century. Initially, they served for a meeting of Christians or people preparing for baptism and were quite large. Inside such a room there was always a baptismal font, similar to a kind of pool, in which several adults could be baptized at the same time. Over time, when the bulk of the adult population became Christianized, and baptism began already in infancy, the need for baptismal churches disappeared, and the font itself decreased in size and began to be installed in a temple or chapel. As the 20th century saw a renewed surge in the number of adults seeking baptism, interest in baptistery baptisteries increased.
History of construction
The Florence Baptistery is the oldest building in the entire city. In ancient times, the building housed a temple to Mars, the god of war; in the 4th century it was converted into a Christian temple, and it acquired its modern appearance in the 11th-13th centuries.
There is no exact dating of the construction of the baptistery, but the first mention of it dates back to the fifth century. The first baptismal church was built on the ruins of Roman buildings in the north-eastern part of the Florentine walls. Initially the building was built of sandstone. The octagon was not chosen by chance: each face symbolizes the day of creation, and the eighth – baptism, “birth again”. Each face has a three-lobed division. Since its construction, the building has been rebuilt many times, always maintaining its octagonal shape and marble finish.
In the 9th century, the baptistery became the cathedral of Florence and served this function until the 12th century.
In 1059, the newly elected Pope Nicholas II reconstructed the building, completing the octagonal dome and adding a semicircular apse to the western part, where the altar was located.
A smooth pyramidal roof was installed on the baptistery in the 12th century. At the same time, the exterior decoration of the building with green and white marble began. In those days, the Church of St. John combined the functions of a cathedral and a baptismal sanctuary. Sacred sacraments were held twice a year, and it was necessary to provide access to the temple for a large number of people, so the building had several doors.
Doors and columns of the baptistery
The architecture and style of the building is extremely strict and straightforward. On the outside, each face is decorated with pilasters and semicircular arches. The most magnificent decorations of the baptistery are its doors (or gates), decorated with gilded bas-reliefs, of which there are only three: southern, northern and eastern.
These doors are the oldest in the building. They are decorated with 28 reliefs - paintings from the life of John the Baptist. They were created in 1290-1348 by Andrea Pisano, a great Italian artist. By the time work on the gate began, he was already a fairly famous sculptor. In just three months, he made wax molds for the reliefs of the southern gate. The casting of the reliefs themselves was entrusted to the best Venetian master - Leonardo d'Avanzo.
These gates were created in 1401-1424. They are also decorated with 28 reliefs, but depict scenes from the New Testament illustrating the life of Christ. In the year in which the Renaissance began, the city authorities organized a competition for the best option for creating the doors of the baptistery. The young masters Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti shared the victory: the judges could not choose which of them was more talented and worthy of working on the gate. It was proposed to work in pairs, but Brunelleschi refused and has since stopped sculpting altogether. But Ghiberti, on the contrary, devoted almost his entire creative life to working on the reliefs of the northern doors, and the result met all expectations: the result was a true masterpiece. The Florentines, amazed by the work of art they saw, ordered Ghiberti and the eastern doors.
These are the most famous doors of the baptistery. They feature ten frameless gilded panels illustrating scenes from Holy Scripture. Ghiberti portrayed himself in two scenes. The doors have another name - the Gates of Paradise or Porta del Paradiso, as Michelangelo, admiring the work of Ghiberti, dubbed them. The gate was created from 1425 to 1452. But now the gate panels have been replaced with copies, and the originals can be seen in the Duomo Museum.
By the way, at the beginning of the 19th century in St. Petersburg, a copy of this gate was installed at the northern entrance of the Kazan Cathedral.
Columns
Next to the Gates of Paradise, along the edges of the baptistery, two porphyry columns “leaned”, which at the beginning of the 12th century were donated to Florence by Pisa as a token of gratitude for their help in defending against the attack of Lucca. During the conquest of the Pisan fleet in the Balearic Islands, the columns were taken from the island of Majorca. There was a belief that these columns could predict betrayal. The Pisans were sorry to give such a valuable gift, so they first boiled the columns, and they lost their magical properties, but they don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and the Florentines decided to put the columns at the baptistery.
Baptistery interior
Inside, the building repeats the octagonal structure, and each wall is divided into three parts by powerful columns. The walls and floor are decorated with marble. In the center there was once a large bath, the Baptismal Spring, which is mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. But it has not survived to this day; only the 16th century font, located near the wall, remains.
The dome of the building is decorated with mosaics, which were worked on by local and Venetian craftsmen.
The interior is decorated with many works of art:
- funeral complex of Antipope John XXIII (work of sculptors Michelozzo and Donatello);
- the sarcophagus of Bishop Ranieri and sarcophagi from the times of Ancient Rome;
- statue of Magdalene made of wood (by Donatello, 1435-1455);
- altar from the 13th century.
All Florentines were baptized in the baptistery, including Dante Alighieri and the Medici family of rulers of Florence.
Location
The baptistery is located in the very center of the cultural and religious life of the city - on Piazza Duomo and is part of the unified architectural ensemble of the Cathedral of Florence Santa Maria del Fiore along with Giotto's bell tower.
Working hours
Tourists can visit the famous baptism any day of the week. From Monday to Saturday it is open from 12 to 19, and on Sunday from 8:30 to 14:00. On the first Saturday of every month, opening hours are shifted to the morning: from 8.30 to 14.00. The cost of visiting is 5 Euro.
In contact with
The beginning of the early Renaissance in Italian art
V.N. Lazarev
Sculpture. Ghiberti
Despite the energetic activities of Brunelleschi and Donatello, conservative tastes, with an eye to the past, continued to dominate in Florence for a long time. International Gothic took too deep roots; new bold decisions were made by wealthy customers with caution. Niccolo da Uzzano's favorite artist was the mediocre Bicci di Lorenzo; In 1423, Palla Strozzi commissioned an altarpiece for his chapel not from Masaccio, but from one of the most prominent representatives of international Gothic, Gentile da Fabriano; Lorenzo Monaco remained during the second decade of the 15th century the most fashionable painter in Florence; Florentine historian Giovanni Cavalcanti names around 1440 Pisanello and Gentile da Fabriano as the largest painters, without mentioning Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio. The wealthy merchants, frightened by the Ciompi uprising and following the nobility, were captivated by the graceful and elegant forms of late Gothic art, and only its most cultured representatives, who had become familiar with humanistic education, supported the new movement in art. There were also hesitators, who did not oppose the new, but wanted this new not to be too new. Against this background, a figure like Ghiberti becomes understandable. Probably, his art was more popular with a wide circle of the public than the art of Donatello, marked by the stamp of unusual radicalism.
Ghiberti's father was the son of a notary, his mother was a peasant woman. She left her husband, moved to Florence and here she met the jeweler Bartolo di Michele detto Bartoluccio, in whose workshop the young Ghiberti received his artistic education. Brunelleschi and Donatello also began their activities in jewelry, but then they decisively broke with its traditions. Ghiberti, on the other hand, remained a goldsmith throughout his life, even when he carried out large monumental commissions. He most of all valued the elegance of finely finished form, the smooth flow of lines, and the harmony of a carefully weighed composition. It is not for nothing that in his “Comments” he so glorifies the Cologne master Gusmin (died ca. 1420), who worked for Louis II of Anjou, brother of the French king Charles V, Jean of Berry and Philip of Burgundy. Ghiberti saw Gusmin's jewelry and was delighted with its exquisite craftsmanship. Around 1400, Ghiberti apparently became acquainted with the work of French jewelers of the 70-90s of the 14th century, which largely determined the style of his competition relief from 1402.
After the death of his stepfather in 1422, Ghiberti headed a large workshop specializing in bronze casting. Donatello, Ciuffagni, Michelozzo, Paolo Uccello, Masolino passed through it. It was one of the largest artistic centers in Florence, sensitive to changing tastes. An excellent organizer, Ghiberti managed to organize the work in such a way that the individual handwriting of his assistants was completely dissolved in the general style.
Ghiberti's main customers were the Signoria and the richest guilds (Kalimala, Seta, Cambio). Connected with his hometown by thousands of threads, Ghiberti rarely left it (short trips to Pesaro, Venice, Siena, Pisa, two visits to Rome in 1416 (?) and c. 1429). He was lucky in life, his works were invariably liked by customers; Although he was not a professional architect, he was for a long time involved in the construction of the dome of the Florence Cathedral. He could write with satisfaction in his Commentaries: “Few significant things have been done on our soil that were not drawn or installed by my hand.” All this led to Ghiberti's rapid enrichment. Unlike the unmercenary Donatello, he became a rich man who bought up plots of land and amassed a first-class collection of antiques. Having become close to humanist circles in the 20s and 30s, Ghiberti constantly exchanged ideas with them and borrowed a lot from their vocabulary. But he never became a learned humanist, even when, around 1447, he began writing three books of his “Commentarii”, where he outlined the history of ancient art, Italian art of the 13th-14th centuries and prepared quotation material from Vitruvius, Alhazen, Avicenna, Averroes, Vitelo, Pekama and Bacon for a theoretical essay. As a scientist, Ghiberti remained an amateur, although he would never have agreed with this. He did not know Greek (he knew only Latin) and was infinitely inferior to Brunelleschi in the fields of mathematics, geometry, optics and mechanics. His element was rich artistic experience, and not its theoretical generalization. Intelligent, lively and judicious, he was unusually receptive to the most diverse trends of his time, striving to fuse them together in a very special “Ghibertian” style. It happily combined the main features of the Florentine character.
It is significant that Ghiberti himself most of all valued himself as a jeweler and creator of picturesque relief. He writes almost nothing about his statues. But he informs in great detail about his jewelry, not forgetting to mention the nature of the material used, its weight, its price, the selection of precious stones, which were his weakness, and the degree of finesse of the work. Ghiberti transferred all these skills as a jeweler to monumental sculpture, which left a very special stamp on it.
Competition relief.
The earliest undisputed work by Ghiberti is a competition relief from 1402. When Ghiberti worked on it, he was only twenty-four years old. The early maturity of the master is striking. As R. Krautheimer convincingly showed, Ghiberti in this relief reveals a thorough acquaintance with Franco-Burgundian jewelry of the 70-90s of the 14th century - the finest elaboration of faces with pointed graceful features, emphasizing the bones, smooth, linear type, as if faceted folds. Only Ghiberti’s figures are more slender, they are more freely deployed in space, they have more perceptibility. Ghiberti drew not only from local late Gothic traditions, but also used the experience of French jewelers, famous throughout the world for the exceptional care they took in making their miniature items.
In 1401, a competition was announced in Florence to decorate the northern bronze doors of the baptistery. Of the seven works submitted to the competition on the subject of the Sacrifice of Abraham, the jury selected two works performed by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446). Both authors showed themselves to be innovators in sculpture: they paid great attention to the depiction of the naked body, conveying movement, and used motifs from ancient classics. But Brunelleschi dramatizes the image to the utmost, showing movements and gestures in an extremely expressive way. Ghiberti's reliefs are calmer; he pays attention to the nuances of modeling, finishing details, and combines the figures with their surroundings. His reliefs have the unity of all elements of the composition, the truthfulness of details, and technical perfection. According to Vasari, Donatello and Brunelleschi, “...seeing the skill Lorenzo put into his work, they stepped aside, talked among themselves and decided that the work should be entrusted to Lorenzo.” One way or another, the order for the manufacture of doors was given to Ghiberti.
One of Ghiberti's main works is the second doors of the Florentine Baptistery, on which he worked with a large staff of assistants between 1404 and 1424. The creative process proceeded very slowly (on average three reliefs were completed per year). By 1415, most of the reliefs had been cast, but their finishing took nine years (I4I5-I424). The figures and background were made separately and then combined. This method of work contradicted the basic principles of pictorial relief and greatly delayed its development. In the second doors we find only the beginnings of a pictorial relief (and then only in the most recent scenes), but in general here the general character of the relief continues the traditions of Andrea Pisano. Only in the third door will the picturesque relief receive a classical form of expression.
At first, it was planned to place scenes from the Old Testament on the second doors, but this idea was abandoned no later than 1404, when they decided to focus on the New Testament cycle. Scenes should be "read" from left to right within each register and then move on to the register above. This arrangement symbolized the ascent through the steps of redemption. The final scenes of the Christological cycle are placed in the uppermost register. The story begins with the Annunciation and ends with the Descent of St. spirit." The two lower registers feature the seated evangelists and the four church fathers (Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great and Ambrose). All the figures, as well as the heads of the prophets and sibyls inserted into the frame, were gilded, clearly standing out against the neutral background of bronze. On the left door leaf, Ghiberti, proud of his work, gave a self-portrait in the image of one of the prophets. The frames of each of the reliefs and the door portal are richly decorated with plant motifs dating back to French traditions.
When Ghiberti was working on the reliefs of the second doors of the baptistery, “international Gothic” was flourishing in Florence and the new Renaissance art was just taking its first steps. Ghiberti is a staunch supporter of the Gothic understanding of form. But evolution is taking place, albeit slowly, without sudden leaps, without revolutionary innovations. The early group of reliefs (“Annunciation”, “Adoration of the Magi”, “Baptism”, “Prayer of the Cup”), which appeared around 1404-1407, is in many ways similar to the style of competition relief. The same graceful figures, the same melodic, smooth folds. Only the draperies became a little softer and the linear cutting of the form became somewhat stronger. Then we observe the growth of the features of “international Gothic”, which is reflected, as in Lorenzo Monaco, in a pronounced attraction to curvilinear, curved lines that neutralize the volume of figures (“Twelve-year-old Christ in the Temple”, “Transfiguration”, “Crucifixion”, etc.) . The work was carried out especially intensively between 1413 and 1416, when two thirds of all reliefs were completed. Apparently, the last scenes to be composed were “The Betrayal of Judas,” “The Procession to Golgotha,” “The Flagellation of Christ,” “The Descent of St. spirit." Here the clothes are better coordinated with the motive of the figures’ movement, the number of plans increases, the most distant of which is given in low relief, paving the way for the artistic solutions of the third doors. Most of the heads of the prophets were completed after 1415. Among these heads there are many inspired by ancient examples - Roman sarcophagi and Roman portraits (in particular, portraits of Socrates and Caesar). These are Ghiberti's first timid steps to assimilate the ancient heritage. He does this very tactfully, subordinating the ancient details to his plan. From the ancient heritage he takes only what suits him and what does not violate the stylistic structure of his own forms.
The reliefs of the second doors, like Andrea Pisano's first doors, are inscribed in a very complex and capricious form of Gothic quadrifolia, in which four arcs alternate with four triangles. It is extremely difficult to successfully fill such a field with figures, and Ghiberti coped with this task brilliantly. His compositions are distinguished by amazing variety and elasticity, although he uses very little low relief and his architectural scenes are usually given in the same high relief. Ghiberti builds his compositions in such a way that their curved lines echo the smooth arcs of the frame, and straight lines echo the outlines of sharp triangles. To do this, he uses the inclinations of the figures, their bends, the rounding folds of their draperies, and the verticals of the architectural scenes. There seems to be not a single detail or accessory that he did not play with great skill in his compositions, which were always carefully weighed. And if some compositions suffer from overload, then this depended on the nature of the theme itself, and not on the individual desire of the artist. He himself undoubtedly preferred compositions with a small number of figures that did not overload the quadrifolium field. In Ghiberti's reliefs, as in the paintings of the Trecentistas, there remains much that is unclear and ambiguous in the relationships of figures, objects and scenes in space. There are no clear spatial structures so characteristic of Renaissance reliefs and paintings. But even within the confines of such a pictorial system, the master manages to achieve a certain clarity and visibility. The figures of the evangelists and church fathers, given in lower relief, are especially good. Here the master’s remarkable compositional gift for unfolding a figure on a plane, without impoverishing the motive of movement, is fully revealed. In addition, these figures, like those located below, are distinguished by a special fineness of decoration, to which the jeweler Ghiberti always attached exceptional importance.
The second doors of the baptistery gravitate more towards the artistic culture of the Trecento than to the Renaissance movement that was just beginning to take shape. And Ghiberti himself, with his observant and lively mind, should have understood this well. Brunelleschi's early buildings, the first realistic statues of Nanni and Donatello, the discovery and geometric justification of perspective by Filippo (c. 1425), the appearance in Florence of Alberti, who easily assimilated Brunelleschi's new ideas, which he summarized in a treatise on painting completed in 1436, rapid successes Florentine humanism, the fascination of humanistic circles with ancient art, the creation of the first pictorial relief by Donatello around 1417 - all this could not help but prompt Ghiberti to think about the need to somehow respond to these innovations, but to respond in such a way as not to lose his individuality and not sacrifice his hobbies of his youth. This was a difficult task that could give rise to a conflict situation. But not for such an integral and balanced nature as Ghiberti. He mastered it as a result of diligent, unhurried work, as a result of lively communication with people of a new type, as a result of a happy natural gift for merging into a harmonious whole the most contradictory elements that for anyone else would have been incompatible. This reflected the strong character of Ghiberti, who from a young age had his own firmly established aesthetic ideals.
Ghiberti's most mature work, which immortalized his name, is the third doors of the Florentine Baptistery (1425-1452). Michelangelo considered them worthy of being the gates of heaven, and hence their name “Porta del Paradiso”. Here Ghiberti comes fully armed with the specific techniques of pictorial relief, creating a work that served as the starting point for later Renaissance works of this kind.
At first, the Kalimala workshop turned to Leonardo Bruni for advice, who recommended depicting twenty-eight scenes, “magnificent and meaningful” (letter from Bruni dated 1424 (?)). This program drew objections from Traversari and Niccolo Niccoli. Apparently, Traversari, famous as an expert in patristics, was Ghiberti’s main adviser, especially considering the fact that the themes of the Old Testament scenes were developed from the point of view not of scholastic literature, but of the works of the church fathers.
The final program (ten large scenes with inserted episodes) was established in 1428-1429, and Ghiberti undoubtedly played a decisive role in its development. The most important was the abandonment of the Gothic form of quadrifolia used in the first and second doors of the baptistery, and their replacement with simple, smooth rectangular frames. This fact alone speaks of Ghiberti’s conscious transition to Renaissance positions. The entire structure of the double doors gained clarity and calm. All that remained was to find such proportions that the rectangular reliefs would fit well with the framing of the door leaves and the framing of the entire portal.
The Old Testament scenes are read from left to right within each register, then moving to the register below. The story begins with “The Creation of the Heavens, Stars and Man” and ends with “The Meeting of the Queen of Sheba with Solomon.” Following the Trecentist traditions, Ghiberti gave each relief a number of additional episodes (he calls them “effetti”), thereby violating one of the basic principles of realistic art - the unity of place and time. Ghiberti's story has a spasmodic character, which colors it in somewhat fairy-tale tones. Here he follows in the footsteps of the Siena painter Bartolo di Fredi (frescoes in San Gimignano) and the Pisan Piero di Puccio (frescoes in Camposanto). With extraordinary ingenuity, Ghiberti combines various episodes in one relief (he depicted thirty-seven episodes in total). So, in the first relief, the viewer sees God the Father in heaven surrounded by angels, the creation of Adam and Eve in the foreground, the Fall in the distance on the left, expulsion from paradise on the right. These multi-temporal episodes are so skillfully arranged that the story flows smoothly without interruption. To do this, one had to be a great master of composition, and Ghiberti manifests himself as such in all other reliefs. In accordance with the meaning of the individual compositions, Ghiberti placed figures and heads of prophets and prophetesses in niches on the sides, and in the center, under the second relief from the bottom, he placed a self-portrait and a portrait of his son Vittorio, who actively helped him.
Self-portrait of Ghiberti.
Bas-relief of the head of Vittorio, son of Lorenzo Ghiberti.
In framing the doors and portals, Ghiberti made extensive use of plant motifs, which he processed with extraordinary diligence. The niches are separated from each other by ornamental inserts that protrude slightly forward, emphasizing the recesses of the niches. The frame of the portal is given a much more powerful relief. There are leaves, fruits, and ears of corn here. Various birds and squirrels swarm among them. Everything is conveyed with amazing precision and love, which clearly shows what a passionate admirer of nature Ghiberti was. There are a lot of remnants of late Gothic naturalism here, but everything has become denser, more voluminous, more weighty, in short, more realistic.
Each of the gilded reliefs is cast from one piece, and not mounted, as on the second doors, from different parts. This stimulated the “pictorial” construction of compositions, with extensive use of perspective. Usually the line protrudes slightly beyond the rectangular frame, but the compositions on top do not extend beyond its limits, this gives the reliefs a slight concavity. The statues and heads of prophets and prophetesses were cast separately and then inserted into niches. There are a lot of ancient motifs in these statues and heads, as well as in the reliefs themselves. From about 1416 until the end of his life, Ghiberti accumulated a huge number of sketches from ancient monuments (mainly from sarcophagi, reliefs of the Arch of Constantine, Trajan's Column, the frieze of the Temple of Minerva in the Forum of Nerva, etc.). He resorted to them when he wanted to achieve greater expression of faces, greater vitality and harmony of complex figured groups, greater convincingness in conveying the movement of fluttering draperies and individual gestures. In the third doors, art historians have noted many direct borrowings from ancient sculpture. But Ghiberti subjected all these borrowings to such changes that they could organically dissolve in his own plan. Ancient art, as perceived by the master, was not nature itself, as Donatello imagined it, but contained the principles and laws that governed nature. Its main significance for Ghiberti was that it was a purified and improved edition of nature. In this approach, Ghiberti was close to the Florentine humanists, who became more and more seriously interested in ancient art (Niccolò Niccoli, Poggio and others). And, probably, not without their influence, he himself began to collect antiques.
Ghiberti clearly formulated his basic attitude in the Commentarii: “I planned in them [that is, in the reliefs of the third doors] to respect all dimensions and tried to imitate nature, as far as it was in my power, and also [to imitate] all the outlines that I could draw from it, as well as an excellent and rich composition of numerous figures.” Here we have a kind of manifesto for the new realistic art. To achieve the effect of depth, Ghiberti attached great importance to architectural scenes depicted in perspective (he calls them casa-menti). Of no less importance were plans (piani) decreasing in degree of relief, which were carried out in the greatest distance in rilievo schiacciato. Finally, the size and volume of the figures were strictly differentiated depending on the degree of their distance from the viewer’s eye. In this system, everything was based on size and proportions. This is how the boundaries between the painting and the “picturesque relief” were smoothed out.
In the composition of the scenes decorating the third doors, Ghiberti reveals truly amazing ingenuity. One cannot help but create the impression that he composes it easily, without much effort, although in fact each of the reliefs was the fruit of long and diligent work. It is especially striking how skillfully he combines episodes from different times and how rich his repertoire of various movement motifs is. Looking carefully at the reliefs, you find in them many charming details, suggested by life and completely unexpected. But on the whole, Ghiberti remains in this, the most “Renaissance” of his works, true to his youthful skills as a jeweler and to his attraction to everything graceful and melodic. He is little attracted to the individual appearance of a person and the opportunity to express a certain character in him. Therefore, it would be in vain to look for the embodiment of the new humanistic ideal of man in his reliefs. Pretty and outwardly beautiful usually blur the boundaries of the individual.
Probably, without Brunelleschi's discovery and without Alberti's advice, Ghiberti would never have been able to give such bold perspective solutions as we find in the reliefs of Porta del Paradiso. However, he understands perspective more freely, more “empirically”, taking into account the changing point of view of the viewer. Brunelleschi's promising system must have seemed too rigid and somewhat mechanistic to him. He deliberately does not observe a single perspective point of view for all reliefs, but builds compositions of individual reliefs from his own point of view. He takes into account that the viewer looking at the doors will not stand in one place, but will be in motion. Therefore, he develops his compositions much more freely than Brunelleschi and Alberti would have done. The lines do not always converge exactly at one point, and cases of optical deformations are not uncommon. This free use of perspective fits well with Ghiberti’s “murmuring” story, replete with inserted episodes.
The art of Ghiberti is a very special case in the history of Quattrocentist artistic culture. If the master had executed only the second doors of the baptistery, he should have been given a place, like Lorenzo Monaco, among the belated trecentists. But Ghiberti didn’t stop there. The husband is very experienced, he was able to take into account those changes that did not occur on his initiative in Florentine art in the second and third decades of the 15th century. Hence his involvement in new, realistic trends. However, unlike Donatello, Ghiberti never broke with the past, with the traditions of the “soft style”. Thus was born a unique symbiosis of elements of late Gothic and early Renaissance. It would be incorrect to characterize Ghiberti as a "conservative." It developed, albeit slowly, but extremely consistently and purposefully. He wanted to remain himself, but he also wanted to “keep up with the times.” He wanted to preserve the face of a jeweler who most of all valued elegance and quality work and sought special melody in compositional structures and melodiousness of lines, but he also wanted to “imitate nature as far as it was in his power.” Here he had to learn the foundations of new perspective thinking, inseparable from the new, realistic art that was born before his eyes. Thus, Ghiberti, remaining himself, quietly took his place among Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio, although he was much inferior to them in the boldness and monumentality of artistic decisions.
Italy and each of its towns are filled with the atmosphere of ancient ruins and the legacy of the great Renaissance. This country can be described as a real museum under a heavenly dome, because in terms of the number of “treasures” in Europe, Italy deservedly takes first place.
Florence Baptistery
The sights of Florence are known throughout the world - these are excellent buildings in the form of cathedrals, magnificent museums, palaces and churches. One of these amazing attractions is the Baptistery of St. John (San Giovanni), located in Piazza Duomo.
This octagonal church building on a stepped podium was erected in the 4th-5th centuries. The baptistery acquired the appearance that we can see today in the 11th-13th centuries. This is the oldest building in the city. Until the 19th century, it was in this place that all natives of Florence were baptized. The dome vault is decorated with incomparable Byzantine mosaics, and the central mosaic shows a painting of the Last Judgment with the image of Christ in the very center.
North, East and South gates
The baptistery is a place for baptismal ceremonies. A huge stream of people wanting to convert to Christianity has flocked to this temple from time immemorial. In this regard, the structure now has three different entrances. The southern gate was built according to the design of Andrea Pisano and is the oldest. Looking at the South Gate, it is impossible not to admire the panels with amazing bas-reliefs telling about the life of John the Baptist.
Lorenzo Ghiberti is the creator of the other two gates. The Gothic style of the North Gate is decorated with episodes from the New Testament. They were created at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The eastern gate has divisions in the form of ten gilded panels depicting biblical stories. Michelangelo himself “christened” the Eastern Gate the “Gates of Heaven.” At the moment, this gate is considered the most famous.
In addition to Piazza Duomo, it is also worth visiting Piazza della Signoria, where there are several ancient buildings from the 14th-16th centuries, a statue by Raphael and many other interesting objects.
Address: Piazza San Giovanni, 50122 Firenze FI, Italy.
Working hours depends on the season. The daily schedule can be found on the official website of the Florence museums.
Day off: first Tuesday of every month.
In the heart of Florence, in Piazza Duomo, is the Baptistery of St. John the Baptist. This church building was built in the 5th century AD, during the Roman period. Subsequently, the building was rebuilt and decorated several times.
Particularly noteworthy is the Eastern Gate, a masterpiece by the Florentine artist Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455). About these doors, Michelangelo said that they would be suitable for Paradise, and behind them the name “Gates of Paradise” was forever preserved.
Ghiberti was born in Florence, the illegitimate son of a goldsmith. From an early age, Lorenzo worked in a jewelry workshop. In his youth he traveled to Germany, where he may have learned the technique of artistic casting.
In 1401, he wins the Competition for the creation of the North Gate of the Baptistery, organized by Kalimala. Among the judges was Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici. Many sculptors, including Brunelleschi, took part in this Competition, from which the history of the Renaissance begins. But the future famous architect Filippo Brunelleschi lost and, upset, left for Rome, together with his friend Donatello, to study Ancient art. Another proof that fate cannot be predicted, and if one door closes in front of you, another will definitely open.
Lorenzo Ghiberti worked on the creation of the Northern Gate with episodes from the New Testament from 1403 to 1424. He was helped by his students, including Donatello, Michelozzo, Paolo Uccello.
Working on the Eastern Gate, from 1425 to 1452, Ghiberti abandoned the traditional Gothic style of framing reliefs and appears before us as a true Renaissance sculptor. He preferred rational square frames, large in area, inside which we see complex multi-figure scenes of the Old Testament.
The reading of the gate begins in the upper left corner, where Adam and Eve are depicted, who lived in Paradise, violated the prohibition of God and were expelled from Paradise.
On the right we see a bas-relief with a narrative about the deeds of the sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. On the right in the relief, the brothers make a sacrifice. Seeing that his sacrifice is not accepted, Cain becomes jealous of his brother and kills him. Below, Cain with a staff talks to God.
One of the most important scenes for the Florentines of that time is the bas-relief with the Histories of Joseph the Jew. The bas-relief depicts 3 episodes. In the distance we see the scene when Joseph's brothers sold him to Egyptian merchants for 20 pieces of silver. Joseph, the son of Jacob, stood out among the other 11 brothers for his meekness and obedience. His father loved him more than anyone and sewed him colorful clothes. For this, the brothers hated him and decided to get rid of him. Joseph is a type of Christ, whom Judas sold for 30 pieces of silver.
In the foreground is the scene of the meeting with the brothers in Egypt. Joseph, thanks to his gift for solving dreams, became the ruler of Egypt. No one starved in his country; merchants from all over the world came here. One day the brothers came to Egypt, but did not recognize him. Joseph invited them to a feast and placed a silver cup in Benjamin’s bag of grain.
On the left, in the background, we see the scene when Joseph forces the brothers to return and, seeing that they have reformed, generously forgives them.
Just like Cosimo the Elder de' Medici forgives the Florentines for his exile and returns to Florence in triumph in 1434 and becomes ruler, albeit unofficially.
You can look at “The Gates of Heaven” for a very long time. Now in the square we see a brilliant copy. The original is kept in the Cathedral Art Museum.
