“. . . this slumber of forgetfulness will not last forever. After the darkness has been dispelled, our grandsons will be able to walk back into the pure radiance of the past.” (Petrarch, Africa, IX, 453–7, quoted by Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, New York: Westview Press, 1960, 10) Petrarch’s concluding words to his epic poem Africa are equally applicable to Ghiberti studies. Long under the dark shadows of Richard Krautheimer and John Pope-Hennessy, Lorenzo Ghiberti and his magnificent Gates of Paradise from the Florentine Baptistery are finally being seen in a new light with fresh eyes. Free of corrosive deposits and later varnishes, the gilded bronze doors now appear much as they did at their installation in 1452, allowing us to witness Ghiberti’s breathtaking skill as a metallurgist, sculptor, storyteller, and goldsmith and to share the astonishment of Renaissance viewers like Michelangelo Buonarroti and Giorgio Vasari, who claimed them to be “the most beautiful work which has ever been seen in the world, whether ancient or modern” (quoted in the catalogue, 38). The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Renaissance Masterpiece, organized by Atlanta’s High Museum of Art in collaboration with the Opera di Santa Maria del...