The Proportions of Ghiberti's Saint Stephen: Vitruvius's De Architectura and Alberti's De Statua

Abstract

Ghiberti's Saint Stephen, commissioned by the Arte della Lana for its tabernacle at Orsanmichele, is the last of three bronze sculptures executed by the artist for the decorative program of the Florentine Oratorio (Fig. 1).1 Although Ghiberti himself praised the statue in his Commentarii as one “fatta con grande diligentia,”2 the Saint Stephen has often been regarded as a faltering step in the artist's career. Recently Krautheimer pointed to it as an example of the artist's unsuccessful solution to the problem of large-scale sculpture,3 and Seymour referred to it as “Ghiberti's homage to the medieval style of the original Trecento marble image which his own displaced.”4