who won the competition in 1401 to design a set of doors for the florence baptistery
Florence Baptistery These north doors would serve as a votive offering to celebrate the sparing of Florence from relatively recent scourges such as the Black Death in 1348. Many artists competed for this commission and a jury selected seven semifinalists. These finalists include Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia,[7] 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. Ghiberti's autobiography, however, claimed that he had won, "without a single dissenting voice." The original designs of The Sacrifice of Isaac by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi are on display in the museum of the Bargello.
Italian Renaissance The European Renaissance began in Tuscany (Central Italy), and centred in the city of Florence.[1] Florence, one of the several city-states of the peninsula, rose to economic prominence by providing credit for European monarchs and laying down the groundwork for capitalism and banking.[2] The Renaissance later spread to Venice, heart of a mediterranean empire and in control of the trade routes with the east since the end of the crusades and the voyages of Marco Polo, where the remains of ancient Greek culture were brought together and provided humanist scholars with new texts. Finally the Renaissance had a significant effect on the Papal States and Rome, largely rebuilt by Humanist and Renaissance popes (such as Alexander VI and Julius II), who were frequently involved in Italian politics, in arbitrating disputes between competing colonial powers and in opposing the Reformation.