Sacrifice of Isaac

It was in 1401, at the height of the Gothic period, that the famous competition for the second door of the Florentine Baptistery took place. The contest, which required a relief on the subject of the Sacrifice of Isaac, was entered by Jacopo della Quercia, Francesco di Valdambrino, Nicolò Lamberti, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi – a memorable confrontation that was to set the new directions of quattrocento art. Of the competing works only the panels by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi have come down to us, antithetical in their stylistic approach. In a harsh and often strongly original language, Brunelleschi composes the scene in abrupt, broken rhythms, responding to the promptings of an agitated drama: the wave of passion carries him beyond the mixtilinear frame, in search of a new definition of space.