Unfinished Renaissance mystery unravels in new study

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Nicholas Temple, Professor of Architecture, is collaborating with Professor Cecilia Panti of the University of Rome on a British Academy-funded investigation of the so-called Third Commentary of Lorenzo Ghiberti, an artist who lived from 1378-1455 and is best known for the bronze Gates of Paradise at the Baptistry in Florence.

He wrote three Commentaries, described by Professor Temple as “a mysterious unfinished text about the history of art from antiquity to Ghiberti’s own period”. He and Professor Panti are completing a ground-breaking translation and scholarly analysis of the third and longest of the manuscripts.

 

“It is unusual because it is a study of optics – the way in which we see the world,” said Professor Temple. “It is a strange instruction for artists on how they visualise their own work, and central to Ghiberti’s investigation is the importance of light. The document is in fragments and was never finished, so most scholars have given up trying to translate it. It has been described as incomprehensible!”