Located on the East Door of the Florence Baptistery is the illustration by Lorenzo Ghiberti. This door was built between 1424 and 1452 of bronze and is about eighteen feet tall. It depicts ten biblical scenes on ten panels, two sets of five Old Testament scenes, that are immensely detailed with styles carried over from previous centuries. The ten main panels are framed by many single figures of saints and Ghiberti eliminated the use of quatrefoil frame, which was not as best suited for the new perspective system. The vanish point located above the meeting of Solomon and Sheba allows for different level of view and separates the main attraction of the panel from that of the lower giving it depth. It is very good example of linear or one-point perspective. The other technique combines the diminishing of the size of the figures and objects The lower relief appears more distant than the what is in the higher relief. The image shows the pairing of the Old and New Testament. The image shows the efforts of the East and West in biblical context to unite which represents the Byzantine and Western branch of Rome trying to combine in the fifteenth century. It is believed Ghiberti won the competition for the doors because of his more graceful style as well as the fact that his doors were cheaper to make because they were made of bronze versus Bunelleschi’s. The time period in which the doors were made was a period when the popes were encouraging the humanist assimilation of ancient Greek and Roman philosophies into their own Christian faith, which is another characterization of the merging lands of East and West as well as Old and New Testament. This door frame was so beautiful that it was nicknamed paradiso because Michelangelo thought it could be the entrance to paradise.
stephbusch 