Ruggiero‘s share in the murder of Gherardesca has sometimes been doubted, but on very inadequate groumb‘. Unly in one respect can the poet be fairly accused of having absolutely departed from strict historical accuracy, namely, with regard to the age of the sons and grandsons, who, though represented by him as children, appear to have been all of them grown up. The narrative of \‘illani has already been referred to ; references to other sources may be found in Sismondi and in the annotated editions of Dante, particularly in that of “ l’hilalethes " (the late king of Saxony).
GHERIAH, a town and fortress of British India, in the presidency of Bombay, about 170 miles south of Bombay, otherwise called Viziadrug. See Viziadrug.
GHIBELLINES. See Guelphs.
GHIBERTI, Lorenzo (1378–1455), whose name alone is worthy to rank with that of Donatello amongst the grand Italian sculptors of the Renaissance, was born at Florence in the year 1378. He learned the trade of a goldsmith nuler his father Ugoccione, commonly called Cione, and his stepfather Bartoluccio; but the goldsmith’s art at that time included all varieties of plastic arts, and required from those who devoted themselves to its higher branches a general and profound knowledge of design and colouring. In the early stage of his artistic career Ghiberti was best known as a painter in fresco, and when his native city Florence was visited by the plague he repaired to Rimini, where he executed a highly prized fresco in the palace of the sovereign Pandolfo Malatesta. He was recalled from Rimini to his native city by the urgent entreatics of his stepfather Bartoluccio, who informed him that a competition was to be opened for designs of a second bronze gate in the baptistry, and that he would do wisely to return to Florence and take part in this great artistic contest. The subject for the artists was prescribed,———the sacrifice of Isaac; and the competitors were required to observe in their work a certain conformity to the first bronze gate of the baptistery, executed by Andrea Pisano about 100 years previously. Of the six designs presented by different Italian artists, those of Donatello, Brunelleschi, and Ghiberti were pronounced the best, and of the three Brunelleschi’s and Ghiberti’s superior to the third, and of such equal merit that the thirty-four judges with whom the decision was left entrusted the execution of the work to the joint labour of the two friends. Brunelleschi, however, withdrew entirely from the contest,——according to one account, from his cordial admiration of Ghiberti’s genius, according to another, from his unwillingness to share so great an undertaking with any fellow-labourer. The first of his two bronze gates for the baptistry occupied Ghiberti twenty years, and when completed was justly regarded as the greatest work of its kind since the most glorious days of Grecian art. Ghiberti brought to his task a deep religious feeling and the striving after a high poetical ideal which are not to be found in the works of Donatello, though in power of characterization the second sculptor often stands above the first. Like Donatello, he seized every opportunity of studying the remains of ancient art; but he sought and found purer models for imitation than Donatello, through his excavations and studies in Rome, had been able to secure. The council of Florence, which met during the most active period of Ghiberti’s artistic career, not only secured him the patronage of the pontiff, who took part in the council, but enabled him, through the important connexions which he then formed with the Greek prelates and magnates assembled in Florence, to obtain from many quarters of the Byzantine empire the precious memorials of old Greek art, which he studied with untiring zeal. The unbounded admiration called forth by Ghiberti’s first bronze gate led to his receiving from the chiefs of the Florentine guilds the order for the second, of which the subjects were likewise taken from the Old Testament. The Florentines gazed with especial pride on these magnificent creations, which must still have shone with all the brightness of their original gilding when, a century later, Michelangelo pronounced them worthy to be the gates of paradise.[1] Next to the gates of the baptistry Ghiberti’s chief works still in existence are his three statues of St John the Baptist, St Matthew, and St Stephen, executed for the church of San Michele, among which three works, from the ideal character of the entire figure and the peculiar felicity of expression, the palm is generally awarded to the St Stephen. In the bas-relief of the coffin of St Zenobio, in the Florence cathedral, Ghiberti put forth much of his peculiar talent, and though he did not, as is commonly stated, execute entirely the painted glass windows in that edifice, he furnished several of the designs, and did the same service for a painted glass window in the church of San Michele. He died at the age of 77.
We are better acquainted with Ghiberti’s theories of art than with those of most of his contemporaries, for he left behind him a commentary, in which, besides his notices of art, he gives much insight into his own personal character and views. Every page attests the religious spirit in which he lived and worked. Not only does he aim at faithfully reflecting in his creations Christian truths; he regards the old Greek statues with a kindred feeling, as setting forth the highest intellectual and moral attributes of human nature. He appears to have cared as little for money as Donatello, and expressly thanks heaven that he had not been cursed with a sordid and mercenary spirit, but had ever loved and laboured at art for art's own sake.
Benvenuto Cellini’s criticism on Ghiberti that in his creations of plastic art he was more successful in small than in large figures, and that he always exhibited in his works the peculiar excellences of the goldsmith’s quite as much as this a of the sculptor's art, is after all no valid censure, for it merely affirms that Ghiberti faithfully complied with the peculiar conditions of the task imposed upon him. More frequent have been the discussions of late years as to the part played by perspective in his representations of natural scenery. These have acquired a fresh importance since the discovery of the data, from which it now appears that Fabio Uccelli, commonly regarded as the first great master of perspective, worked for several years in the studio or workshop of Ghiberti, and it becomes difficult to determine to what extent Uccelli’s successful innovations in perspective were due to Ghiberti’s teaching.
Cicngnaro’s criticism on Ghiberti, in his History of Sculpture, has supplied the chief materials for the illustrative text of Lasinio's series of engravings of the three bronze gates of the baptistry. They consist of 42 plates in folio, and were published at Floran- by Bardi in 1821. Still more vivid representations are the repro- ductions on a very large scale by the photographic establishment of Alinari. In the Florence edition of Vasari's Liz-rs there is given at full length Ghiberti’s commentary on art. lloth Mr Perkins, in his History of Tuscan Sculpture, and Mr Ilio, in his Art Chréticn, have treated Ghiberti’s works with much fulness, and in a spirit of sound appreciation. But the most recent contributions to what may be termed the Ghiberti literature are the chapter expressly devoted to the history of the competition for the baptistry gates in Semple’s Donatello (Vienna, 1875), and the articles by Adolf Bosemberg in Dohrne’s Kunst 'und Kiinstlcr tlcs Jlittclaltcrs (Leipsie, 1877).
- ↑ Through long exposure to the dusty atmosphere of the town they have of late years begun to lose considerably in delicacy of outline; and it is much to be feared that, unless measures are speedily taken for their preservation, they will at no distant period suffer a still more marked deterioration.
