scan art in its prime met before the Florentine
Baptistery.[80] Giacomo della Quercia was excluded from the competition at
an early stage; but the umpires wavered long between Ghiberti and
Brunelleschi, until the latter, with notable generosity, feeling the
superiority of his rival, and conscious perhaps that his own laurels were
to be gathered in the field of architecture, withdrew his claim. In 1403,
Ghiberti received the commission for the first of the two remaining gates.
He afterwards obtained the second; and as they were not finished until
1452, the better part of his lifetime was spent upon them. He received in
all a sum of 30,798 golden florins for his labour and the cost of the
material employed.

The trial-pieces prepared by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti are now preserved
in the Bargello.[81] Their subject is the "Sacrifice of Isaac;" and a
comparison of the two leaves no doubt of Ghiberti's superiority. The
faults of Brunelleschi's model are want of repose and absence of
composition. Abraham rushes in a frenzy of murderous agitation at his son,
who writhes beneath the knife already at his throat. The angel swoops from
heaven with extended arms, reaching forth one hand to show the ram to
Abraham, and clasping the patriarch's wrist with the other. The ram
meanwhile is scratching his nose with his near hind leg; one of the
servants is taking a thorn from his foot, while the other fills a cup from
the stream at which the ass is drinking. Thus each figure has a separate
uneasy action. Those critics who contend that the unrest of
sixteenth-century sculpture was due to changes in artistic and religious
feeling wrought by the Renaissance, would do well to examine this plate,
and see how much account must be taken of the artist's temperament in
forming their opinion. Brunelleschi adhered to the style and taste of the
fifteenth century at its commencement; but the too fervid quality of his
character impaired his work as a sculptor. Ghiberti, on the other hand,
translated the calm of his harmonious nature into his composition. The
angel leans from heaven and points to the ram, which is seated quietly and
out of sight of the main actors. Isaac kneels in the attitude of a
submissive victim, though his head is turned aside, as if attracted by the
rush of pinions through the air; while Abraham has but just lifted his
hand, and the sacrifice is only suggested as a possibility by the naked
knife. The two servants are grouped below