Florence 1401, a competition was announced to design the baptistry North Doors.
Seven sculptors competed, including Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia, with 21-year old Ghiberti winning the commission.
At the time of judging, only Ghiberti and Brunelleschi were finalists, and when the judges could not decide, they were assigned to work together on them. Brunelleschi’s pride got in the way, and he went to Rome to study architecture leaving Ghiberti to work on the doors himself.
It took Ghiberti 21 years to complete these doors.
These gilded bronze doors consist of twenty-eight panels, with twenty panels depicting a biblical scene from the New Testament.
The eight lower panels show the four evangelists and the Church Fathers Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint Gregory and Saint Augustine. The panels are surrounded by a framework of foliage in the door case and gilded busts of prophets and sibyls at the intersections of the panels. The doors in the baptistery are a copy of the originals which are in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.
