Booklist
Created between 1425 and 1452, Lorenzo Ghiberti's series of bronze relief panels for the east doors of the Florence Baptistery are a touchstone of Western art, influencing sculptors and painters throughout the Renaissance and beyond. Surprisingly little scholarship has been done on the panels, however, in part because for centuries they were covered almost beyond recognition by layers of accumulated grime. Restored in the 1950s, they were damaged in 1966 by the flood of the Arno and subsequently removed from public view once again. It's that woeful state of affairs—combined with a current American tour of several of the re-restored panels—that makes Radke's thoughtful and beautifully illustrated volume so welcome. Erudite yet accessible essays illuminate Ghiberti's quest for the original commission (beating out his great rival, Filippo Brunelleschi, architect of the nearby Duomo), his painstaking work processes, his selective use of perspective, and the ingenious, often emotional ways in which he interpreted the Old Testament stories that the panels illustrate. Nance, Kevin
