Roman goldsmith, the floating vision of
the great dome he was to build--and so built it, all opposition
notwithstanding, clearing out of his way with the almost contemptuous
impatience of that knowledge which has no doubt of itself, the competing
architects.

GHIBERTI'S GATES[35]

BY CHARLES YRIARTE

The Baptistery is the most ancient building in Florence. If not of pagan
origin it dates from the earliest ages of Christianity. It was coated
with marble of different colors by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1293, while in
the sixteenth century Agnolo Gaddi designed the lantern; but long before
Arnolfo's time it had been employed as a Christian place of worship,
being used as a cathedral up to 1128, when it was converted into a
baptistery.

This building contains three gates, which have no parallel in the world.
The oldest is that on the southern side, upon which Pisano spent
twenty-two years of his life, a most beautiful work representing, in
twenty compartments, the life of St. John the Baptist. The frieze which
runs round it was commenced nearly a century afterward by Ghiberti, and
Pollaiuolo had much to do with its completion.

The northern gates are by Ghiberti, and, like those of Pisano, are
divided into twenty compartments, the subject being the life of Christ.
The bronze door-posts are delicately carved with flowers, fruit, and
animals. These gates were first placed on the eastern side, but in 1452
were removed to make room for Ghiberti's still finer work.

On the third facade, that which faces the Duomo, is the Porta del
Paradiso, so named by Michael Angelo, who declared that this gate was
worthy to be the entrance into Paradise. Ghiberti divided each panel
into five parts, taking the following as his subjects, after suggestions
made by Leonardo Bruni Aretino: (1) Creation of Adam and Eve; (2) Cain
and Abel; (3) Noah; (4) Abraham and Isaac; (5) Jacob and Esau; (6)
Joseph in Egypt; (7) Moses on Mount Sinai; (8) The Capture of Jericho;
(9) David Slaying Goliath; (10) The Queen of Sheba and Soloman.

The frieze contains statuettes of the prophets and prophetesses and
portrait-busts of men and women still alive, including Ghiberti himself,
and his father; while the frame-posts, with their masses of vegetation
and flora wrought in bronze, are admirable for their truth to nature.
Bronze groups representing the "Decapitation of St. John the Baptist,"
by Danti, and the "Baptism of our Lord," by Andrea Sansovino, sur