Lorenzo, an Italian sculptor, whose life marks an era in the history of modern art. He was a native of Florence, but it is not known in what year he was born. Vasari assigns his birth to the year 1380; but some original documents brought to light by Baldinucci place it two years earlier. While still very young, Ghiberti was taught drawing and the arts of modelling and casting metals by his step-father Bartoluccio, a goldsmith. The goldsmiths of Florence were at this time highly celebrated. He is believed to have afterwards received lessons in painting from Starnina, which he turned to account by painting a fresco in the Malatesta palace at Rimini, when compelled to leave Florence by the plague which devastated that city at the end of the fourteenth century. His success in this effort tempted him into the study of the pictorial art, when a circumstance occurred which gave him the opportunity of proving himself the first sculptor of his own day, and one of the most remarkable of all times. The Society of Merchants of Florence opened a competition for a pair of bronze doors for the Baptistery of St John's, to rival those erected about half a century before by the famous Andrea Pisano. Artists from all parts of Italy entered the lists, and seven were finally chosen to make trial of their skill, among whom were Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Ghiberti. Each of these artists was allowed a large fee and his expenses for an entire year, at the end of which period he was to present a panel of gilt bronze representing in bas-relief the sacrifice of Isaac. On the trial day the judges and competitors were unanimous in awarding the palm to Ghiberti, who, when he began his work, was invited by his employers to spare neither time nor expense in turning out a work worthy of his own genius and of the state. The gates, when finished, contained twenty panels, each with a relief representing some Scripture subject, and were pronounced by Michael Angelo as worthy to be the gates of Paradise. Some of the best of modern critics have denied that these gates are in all respects superior to those of Andrea Pisano, admitting indeed that they display greater invention and a higher skill, but pronouncing them inferior on the score of simplicity and correctness. Another objection is that the designs have been conceived rather in the spirit of painting than of sculpture, and that the artist's endeavour to represent perspective by various degrees of relief is wrong, in so far as the outermost figures cast shadows on those immediately behind them, though these inner figures are intended to be a considerable distance from the former. These defects, however, detract but little from the intrinsic merit of Ghiberti's masterpieces. These doors were set up in 1424; and four years later he received a commission to execute two others in a still richer style. This second engagement occupied eighteen or twenty years. It was not till 1446 that he completed his task. Some of Ghiberti's other bronzes are worthy of special notice, such as his statues of Saints John, Matthew, and Stephen in the church of Or-San-Michele at Florence, and the shrine of St Zenobius in the cathedral of that city. Ghiberti practised successfully, some of the other branches of art, particularly that of painting on glass. Some of the finest windows in the cathedral and other churches of his native city were his handiwork. The exact date of Ghiberti's death is unknown. His will bears the date of 1455, and as he was at that time seventy-seven years of age, it is not likely that he long survived.