Around the end of 1400, the city of Florence decided to create new sculpted and gilded bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery. A competition was held in 1401 for the design, which drew seven competitors, including Brunelleschi and another young sculptor, Lorenzo Ghiberti. Each sculptor had to produce a single bronze panel, depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac within a Gothic four-leaf frame. The panels each contained Abraham, Isaac, an angel and other figures imagined by the artists, and had to harmonize in style with the existing doors, produced in 1330 by Andrea Pisano. The head of the jury was Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, who later became an important patron of Brunelleschi. The jury initially praised Ghiberti's panel. When they saw Brunelleschi's work, they were unable to choose between the two and suggested that the two artists collaborate on the project. Brunelleschi refused to forfeit total control of the project, preferring it to be awarded to Ghiberti. This divided public opinion.
Brunelleschi would eventually abandon sculpture and devote his attention entirely to architecture and optics, but continued to receive sculpture commissions until at least 1416.
In 2013, the Frilli Gallery received from Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi, Director of the Bargello National Museum, exceptional authorisation to make scans of the original masterpieces of the panels created for the legendary competition between Ghiberti and Brunelleschi in 1401.
The ultra-high-definition scans resulted in a digital relief comprised of a cloud of millions of points from which a resin prototype was printed and used as a model for lost-wax casting, following the most ancient Florentine tradition for making a work in bronze.
At the request of the Sovrintendenza del Polo Museale Fiorentino, these panels – the only faithful replicas of these two masterpieces in the world – were later lent out by the Frilli Gallery for the Florenz! exhibition held in Bonn in 2013.
In this year 2024, Frilli Gallery replicas of the competition panels have been displayed in Lecco, Italy next to an original and precious drawing by Michelangelo, in occasion of the exhibiton “Il Mistero del padre, nel segno di Michelangelo”.
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