The sculpture of Lorenzo Ghiberti and ritual performance in Renaissance Florence (Italy)

This study focuses on two sculptural projects executed by Lorenzo Ghiberti—the bronze shrine of St. Zenobius (completed between 1432 and 1442), and the second, bronze door he sculpted for the Florentine Baptistery (completed between 1425 and 1452)—as a way to investigate the relationship between art and ritual in fifteenth-century Florence.; Ghiberti executed the shrine to hold the relics of St. Zenobius, a fifth-century bishop of Florence, and it was commissioned for the easternmost chapel of the apse of the Florentine cathedral. The chapel was reconfigured in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and I therefore begin with a reconstruction of the fifteenth-century appearance of the chapel. While the shrine is today located beneath an altar, it originally was elevated above columns.; I follow the reconstruction with an analysis of several aspects of the shrine. It is argued that in formulating the images on its sculpted panels, and in designing the general configuration of the chapel, Ghiberti and his commissioners responded to a shift in attitudes concerning Zenobius' status in Florence. After the transfer of his relics that took place in 1439, Zenobius was newly seen as a civic saint, capable of successfully interceding on behalf of the Florentine people. The appearance of the shrine and the configuration of the chapel reflect this shift in attitudes. Moreover, the liturgical rituals performed in the chapel, in conjunction with the sculpted images of the shrine, continuously and publicly called attention to the efficacy of the saint's relies.; The second, major section of this dissertation argues that the evolution of Ghiberti's style relates to his increasing consideration of the ritual use of his sculptures. While often seen as stylistically regressive, the images of the later panels of his second door, and the last panel of the shrine of St. Zenobius, are here presented instead as manifestations of Ghiberti's increasing consideration of the links between his sculptures, and the liturgical and civic rituals performed in the spaces surrounding his works. Finally, in the last section I analyze the relationship between the placement of the baptistery doors, and the ritual use of the baptistery's portals.