Renaissance Artists: Lorenzo Ghiberti

He also had a fierce feud with another sculptor by the name of Lorenzo Ghiberti.

Documents indicate that Ghiberti and his stepfather, Bartolo di Michele, signed the contract together. The contract stated that Ghiberti must complete three panels a year. However after several years only four panels were finished, this was due to the number of commissions Ghiberti was working on at one time. Contracts required that the artist work on one piece of art at a time, Ghiberti disregarded what the contract stated, working on numerous pieces at any given time. This prompted the Calimala guild to enforce a new contract that caused Ghiberti to be the sole contractor and held him to stricter terms.

Filippo Brunelleschi was a genius at not only architecture, but at sculpture, woodcarving, drawing, and clock making. When the priests in Florence, Italy in 1418 were deciding on what they were going to do with the big hole they had in the roof of their cathedral, Brunelleschi volunteered to be the architect (King, 2013). His motivation was to help the church, however, he also knew that this would allow him to have never ending fame and a big salary once the job was complete. Even though he would not reveal his plan on how he would accomplish this extraordinary task, they accepted his as the supervisor of this great project.

Brunelleschi’s mysterious design touched their imagination. As a boy, during his goldsmith’s apprenticeship, he mastered drawing and painting, wood carving, sculpture in silver and bronze,

Brunelleschi's Dome is not only a worthy contribution to the Renaissance but it was a contribution to the world of art. His creation added an impression of intensity and proportion, which made people feel one with the painting itself. There was a clear contrast that reveals the advancements of the artwork since the Middle

One of the designers, who was not a designer or architect at all, was a goldsmith named Filippo Brunelleschi who applied “his theoretical and mechanical knowledge to observation of the natural world…”1 Proposed a peculiar design: no one dome, but two domes one nested inside the other.

In 1412, the Arte di Calimala gave him another commission: to make a larger-than-life-sized bronze statue of their patron saint, John the Baptist, outside the guild's communal building, Or San Michele (also known as Orsanmichele). A bold undertaking, Ghiberti finished the work in 1416 and was quickly commissioned to do two more similar large bronze statues for the guild. To complete all of this work, Ghiberti operated a smoothly functioning workshop with many

Among the great artists of this period was Filippo Brunelleschi, a true "renaissance man." This young artist, initially trained as a goldsmith, competed in a contest to test the skill of artists in creating bronze works to adorn the doors of te Florence Cathedral baptistery. Bunelleschi's initial work was a powerful, emotional, raw rendition of Abraham's sacrifice of his son, Isaac. His work exhibited extreme skill and conveyed the story in an explosive manner, leading him to the final round of this competition. While his biographer claims that Brunelleschi forfeited the commission to the other competitor after being asked to share the responsibility, the truth behind this statement is not known. It is, however, known that he will forever be regarded for one of his greatest masterpieces of all time... the dome of the Florence cathedral. The development of the Cathedral was delayed, as no architect could quite solve the problem of how to safely, effectively construct the massive dome. Brunelleschi solved this issue by creating an intricate set of interlocking vertical and horizontal ribs, also creating a temporary support system that could be

In Italy during 1418 the Florentine fathers announced a contest for the ideal dome design with the prize of 200 gold florins. One of the candidates was a goldsmith named Filippo Brunelleschi who promised to build not just one dome but two domes. When Brunelleschi was a boy he had mastered drawing and painting, wood carving, sculpture in silver and bronze, stone setting, niello, and enamel work. And later he study optics and tinkered with wheels, gears, and weights and motion, building a number of ingenious clocks including what may have been one of the first clocks in history. The first problem was purely technical because in those times there was no lifting mechanisms capable to lift heavy materials like the dome. Brunelleschi made a

A contest was designed to encourage the greatest architects to create plans for what the cathedral’s ceiling would look like. Ultimately, an artist named Filippo Brunelleschi won, and was responsible for the building of the Duomo in Florence. Upon first glance, the building of the Duomo may not strike people as a monumental or important event in history. However, it is important to remember the Duomo was constructed in Florence, where flying buttresses -an architectural design that carried the weight of roofs on large buildings to the ground- were illegal. Construction of the Duomo took place from 1420 to 1436, and required Brunelleschi to engineer a support system for the roof, previously thought impossible. Traveling back to the Italian Renaissance would allow me to witness architectural history. I would be able to observe Brunelleschi’s imagination come to life, question his methods of thinking, and watch the development of the Duomo create new opportunities for architects in the

In fact, he had been involved in another city-wide competition before: the competition to cast the giant bronze doors of the Baptistery of San Giovanni. He lost this competition narrowly to Lorenzo Ghiberti, an individual Ross King touts as Brunelleschi’s primary contemporary and lifelong rival. This rivalry is a persistent theme throughout the narrative, as Lorenzo also entered the competition for the dome and was actually hired alongside Brunelleschi and another architect as one of three new capo maestri devising the dome’s construction. None of them ever received the prize of 200 florins. If Lorenzo or Battista d’Antonio - the third capo maestro - made any truly significant contributions to the dome’s design, it is seriously downplayed by King, as Brunelleschi is portrayed as the primary source of ingenuity throughout the narrative. Indeed, his salary was raised to three times that of the other capo maestri, and Lorenzo spent far more time in his workshop casting bronze masterpieces - a far more lucrative

in Florence around 1445 where he would live his life. Botticelli was one of the

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, better known as Leonardo da Vinci, was a Florentine artist and is probably one of the most recognized artists of the Renaissance. Two of his well-known works include the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper ("Leonardo

The Renaissance was a period of cultural movement and the introduction of cultural heroes, is known as “Renaissance Men”. One of these men was Michelangelo Buenarroti. Michelangelo was a world-wide known painter, sculptor, architect, and poet, who was of great Importance and had a great impact on our modern day culture.

First, we visit St. Peter’s Basilica and Adjoining Piazza in Rome. The beautiful structure still used today, initially was brought to fruition by Donato Bramante as a temple shaped like a Greek cross. Quickly Pope Paul V rejected the design, deeming the Greek cross to be pagan-like. He commissioned Carlo Maderno to make some changes to the floor plan, adjusting the look into a Latin cross. The florid baroque styles are seen entering the Apse and Alter, which “symbolized the power and richness of the church” (392). The sculptures throughout, specifically in the Apse, are dramatic and real, shunning classical styles.