Where can you see Lorenzo Ghiberti in Florence?

At the Opera del Duomo Museum: The Gates of Paradise and The north doors. At the Bargello National Museum: The Sacrifice of Isaac. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.

What is Lorenzo Ghiberti's most famous work in Florence?

The Gates of Paradise, of 1425 to 1452, at the Opera del Duomo Museum. Ten gilded bronze panels of the Old Testament, each a deep landscape with buildings in perspective. The doors on the baptistery are a copy.

When and where was Lorenzo Ghiberti born?

In 1378, at Pelago, near Florence, Italy. Lorenzo Ghiberti died on 1 December 1455, at Florence, Italy, aged about 77.

What is Lorenzo Ghiberti known for?

Won the competition of 1401 for the baptistery doors. Michelangelo is said to have named his second doors the Gates of Paradise. Put his own portrait on both pairs of doors. Lorenzo Ghiberti was an Italian sculptor, of the Early Renaissance.

Sculptor, 1378 to 1455

Lorenzo Ghiberti

In 1401 Florence held a competition for a new door for its baptistery. Ghiberti, a goldsmith of twenty-three, won it, and the doors that followed occupied the rest of his life.

Born: 1378, Pelago, near Florence, Italy
Died: 1455, Florence, Italy
Movement: Early Renaissance
In Florence: 3 works in 2 museums

Where to see Lorenzo Ghiberti in Florence

Each work with the museum it hangs in. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.

Opera del Duomo Museum2 works

The Gates of Paradise
1425 to 1452
Ten gilded bronze panels of the Old Testament, each a deep landscape with buildings in perspective. The doors on the baptistery are a copy.
The north doors
1403 to 1424
Twenty-eight panels in Gothic frames, most of them of the life of Christ: the commission he won in the competition.

Bargello National Museum1 work

The Sacrifice of Isaac
1401
His trial piece for the competition, hung beside Brunelleschi's. Ghiberti's was cast in one piece and used less bronze, which helped.

The life of Lorenzo Ghiberti

Lorenzo Ghiberti was trained as a goldsmith. His panel of the Sacrifice of Isaac beat Brunelleschi's in the competition of 1401, and he spent the next twenty-one years on the north doors, with a workshop in which Donatello and Paolo Uccello learned their trade.

The city then gave him a second pair without a contest. He worked on them from 1425 to 1452. He also wrote the first autobiography by an artist, and is buried in Santa Croce.

What to know

Won the competition of 1401 for the baptistery doors
Michelangelo is said to have named his second doors the Gates of Paradise
Put his own portrait on both pairs of doors

Born: 1378, Pelago, near Florence, Italy
Died: 1 December 1455, Florence, Italy