ual: there are no other doors at
all like them. They are the work of Bishop Bernward.

Unquestionably, one of the greatest achievements in bronze of any
age is the pair of gates by Lorenzo Ghiberti on the Baptistery
in Florence. Twenty-one years were devoted to their making, by
Ghiberti and his assistants, with the stipulation that all figures
in the design were to be personal work of the master, the
assistants only attending to secondary details. The doors were in
place in April, 1424.

[Illustration: BRUNELLESCHI'S COMPETITIVE PANEL]

The competition for the Baptistery doors reads like a romance,
and is familiar to most people who know anything of historic art.
When the young Ghiberti heard that the competition was open to
all, he determined to go to Florence and work for the prize; in
his own words: "When my friends wrote to me that the governors
of the Baptistery were sending for masters whose skill in bronze
working they wished to prove, and that from all Italian lands many
maestri were coming, to place themselves in this strife of talent,
I could no longer forbear, and asked leave of Sig. Malatesta, who
let me depart." The result of the competition is also given in
Ghiberti's words: "The palm of victory was conceded to me by all
judges, and by those who competed with me. Universally all the
glory was given to me without any exception."

[Illustration: GHIBERTI'S COMPETITIVE PANEL]

Symonds considers the first gate a supreme accomplishment in bronze
casting, but criticizes the other, and usually more admired gate, as
"overstepping the limits that separate sculpture from painting," by
"massing together figures in multitudes at three and sometimes four
distances. He tried to make a place in bas-relief for perspective."
Sir Joshua Reynolds finds fault with Ghiberti, also, for working at
variance with the severity of sculptural treatment, by distributing
small figures in a spacious landscape framework. It was not really
in accordance with the limitations of his material to treat a bronze
casting as Ghiberti treated it, and his example has led many men of
inferior genius astray, although there is no use in denying that
Ghiberti himself was clever enough to defy the usual standards
and rules.

Fonts were sometimes made in bronze. There is such a one at Liege
cast by Lambert Patras, which stands upon twelve oxen. It is decorated
with reliefs from the Gospels. This artist, Patras, was a native
of Dinant, and lived