The Gates of Paradise: How Ghiberti’s Doors Got Their Name

The year is 1424, in the heart of Florence’s historic center. Lorenzo Ghiberti has just finished the work that gave the city the North Door of the Baptistery. Executed with extraordinary skill, it earned him, only a year later, the commission for yet another Baptistery door. The task was entrusted to the master by the Arte guild, the merchants’ guild whose headquarters stood on Via Calimala.

The work took 27 years. The new door, cast in bronze and gold, stirred such admiration that it was installed on the eastern side of the Florence Baptistery, the place of honor, directly facing the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. The door that had stood there was moved to the northern side of the building.

Counted among the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance, the Baptistery’s Gates of Paradise came to life thanks in part to significant help from Ghiberti’s son, Vittore, who took on an ever more prominent role as the work drew to a close. Weighing 8 tons, more than five meters tall and 3 meters wide, the doors also drew on the contributions of other celebrated artists of the day, among them Donatello, Luca della Robbia and Michelozzo, to name only a few of the best-known.

Yet it was Michelangelo, though he took no part in the work, who inspired the name. According to Vasari’s chronicles, standing before the two bronze doors he remarked that they were so beautiful they would look well as the gates of Paradise.