casket of S. Zenobius in the Duomo, and the Baptist and S. Matthew
for Or San Michele; but he may be said justly to live by his doors,
and particularly by the second pair, although it was the first pair
that had the greater effect on his contemporaries and followers.

Among his assistants on these were Antonio Pollaiuolo (born in
1429), who designed the quail in the left border, and Paolo Uccello
(born in 1397), both destined to be men of influence. The bald head
on the right door is a portrait of Ghiberti; that of the old man
on the left is his father, who helped him to polish the original
competition plaque. Although commissioned for the south side they
were placed where they now are, on the east, as being most worthy of
the position of honour, and Pisano's doors, which used to be here,
were moved to the south, where they now are.

On Ghiberti's workshop opposite S. Maria Nuova, in the Via Bufalini,
the memorial tablet mentions Michelangelo's praise--that these doors
were beautiful enough to be the Gates of Paradise. After that what is
an ordinary person to say? That they are lovely is a commonplace. But
they are more. They are so sensitive; bronze, the medium which Horace
has called, by implication, the most durable of all, has become in
Ghiberti's hands almost as soft as wax and tender as flesh. It does
all he asks; it almost moves; every trace of sternness has vanished
from it. Nothing in plastic art that we have ever seen or shall see
is more easy and ingratiating than these almost living pictures.

Before them there is steadily a little knot of admirers, and on
Sundays you may always see country people explaining the panels to each
other. Every one has his favourite among these fascinating Biblical
scenes, and mine are Cain and Abel, with the ploughing, and Abraham