The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Renaissance Masterpiece ed. by Gary M. Radke (review)

REVIEWS 271 traditions of the Church itself. And while Mirk does offer some vernacular translations of the Bible, he does so only as part of an oral exchange and never does he advocate the translation of the Bible into English. Ford also shows how Mirk highlights the varying accounts of Christ’s life in the four gospels and how this comfort with variation was antithetical to the Lollard emphasis on unity of text. She also demonstrates how Mirk brings the gospel writers into the larger hagiographic (rather than scriptural) tradition that is at the basis of his sermons. And lastly, Ford shows how the Festial, while supportive of limiting preaching to clergy, was ultimately supportive of the accessibility of Christian knowledge through many different forms rather than through the Bible alone. Though one may wish that Ford had addressed a number of other texts or issues , that desire perhaps stems from the fact that she has touched upon an exciting topic that warrants much more critical conversation. The book’s greatest fault, though certainly not Ford’s, is a seemingly incomplete job of copyediting. Though the mistakes are not so great that they detract from the worth of the book, they are plentiful enough to warrant comment here. Ford’s book is an important one because it both addresses a neglected, yet critical, sermon collection and because it offers a new and compelling portrait of what constituted orthodoxy in late medieval England. Her attention to the text of the sermons and her ability to read them in light of a variety of other medieval writings is excellent. The translations of the Middle English passages into Modern English will also serve scholars who do not work exclusively in Middle English but may still find the themes of the book relevant to their research . The clear chapter titles and section titles also make this book easy to reference as a quick guide to Lollardy and orthodoxy in late medieval England. It will be of interest to scholars interested in a wide range of areas: literacy, preReformation England, political rebellion, and hagiography. JENNIFER A. T. SMITH, English, UCLA The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Renaissance Masterpiece, ed. Gary M. Radke (New Haven: Yale University Press 2007) 182 pp., 269 color ill. The exhibition entitled “The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Renaissance Masterpiece” and mounted in three American museums—Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art—featured panels from Lorenzo Ghiberti’s famed Gates of Paradise from the San Giovanni Baptistery in Florence. Commissioned by Florence’s Arte di Calimala (Wool Merchants Guild) in 1425 and installed on the east side of the baptistery upon completion in 1452, Ghiberti’s ten relief panels in gilt bronze detail stories from the Old Testament and are considered among the most iconic works of Italian Renaissance art. The exhibition commemorated the conclusion of over twenty-five years of conservation of the Gates undertaken by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. Particularly due to water damage from the 1966 flood of Florence, the restoration process began in 1980 and will culminate this year when the panels are reunited and permanently installed in a hermetically sealed case in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence. The small but impressive exhibition, brought to the United States in part out of gratitude for scholarly assistance during the 1966 flood, displayed three of the ten panels (Adam and REVIEWS 272 Eve, Jacob and Esau, and David) along with four Prophets (two figures in niches and two decorative heads) from the surrounding frame, accompanied by informative didactics about the conservation process. The catalogue, like the exhibition, is concise yet filled with groundbreaking new insight into one of the most beloved works of the Renaissance. A precursor to a larger study that will more thoroughly detail the twenty-five years of scientific findings regarding the Gates as a whole, the catalogue, edited by Gary Radke, Consulting Curator of Italian Art at the High Museum of Art, brings together essays written by experts who worked intimately with the panels displayed in the exhibition, including the head of the Museo dell’Opificio delle Pietre...