The restoration of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s famous “Gates of Paradise” — the bronze East doors of the Florentine Baptistery — represents decades of work. During the process a photographic campaign was undertaken to document the newly cleaned bronze panels and frieze elements, in collaboration with the Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. Artstor joined the effort and received a selection of approximately 850 images for the Digital Library.

This campaign — executed by the photographer, Antonio Quattrone — has produced hundreds of views of Ghiberti’s relief sculptures. Quattrone also undertook a tandem project to document the so-called “competition panels” housed in the Museo del Bargello in Florence. These panels depicting the “Sacrifice of Isaac” were produced in 1401-1402 by Ghiberti and his rival, Filippo Brunelleschi. Eighty-five color and black-and-white photographs of the competition panels have been added to the Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise Collection.

“Never before have we been able to study Ghiberti’s works so clearly and in such exhaustive detail. Taken from a wide variety of angles and under lighting conditions that reveal the full subtlety of Ghiberti’s modeling and finishing, these images will transform thinking about Ghiberti for decades to come.”  — Gary M. Radke, Emeritus Professor, Art History, Syracuse University and Curator for Exhibitions of Italian Art at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.