
Gates of Paradise
1452 · Museo dell'Opera del Duomo (Florence), Florence
Ghiberti gave twenty-seven years to these doors, and the name comes from Michelangelo, who is supposed to have said they were fit for paradise.
★ 8.6

Ghiberti gave twenty-seven years to these doors, and the name comes from Michelangelo, who is supposed to have said they were fit for paradise.

The Virgin is said to be the king's dead mistress, painted with a shaved forehead and one breast bared, ringed by red cherubim.

Christ stands to place the host on each tongue exactly as a priest does at Mass, in a bare cell-like room with stools.