“Gates of Paradise” and the Florentine Baptistery

Abstract

Ghiberti's East Doors for the Baptistery of Florence have been known since the sixteenth century as the “Gates of Paradise” (Fig. 1). The origin of the name is supposedly to be found in a remark made by Michelangelo and reported with slight variations in several early sources. Vasari's well-known account relates that one day, as Michelangelo stood before Ghiberti's doors, he was asked by a companion what he thought of them. Michelangelo replied that the doors were so beautiful that they were worthy to serve as the Gates of Paradise.1 Legend would have it that the name caught on and that the East Doors have been known ever since as the Gates of Paradise. Recently, scholars have questioned the meaning of the Michelangelo legend; they have identified the source of the name in older medieval architectural tradition, specifically, in the existence either of a paradise-door associated with the Cathedral or of a paradisus, an atrium in front of the Cathedral.2