From April 2007 to January 2008 three newly restored panels and four decorative pieces from Lorenzo Ghiberti's famed Gates of Paradise for the Florentine Baptistery (1424-52) will be exhibited in three American museums (High Museum, Atlanta; Art Institute, Chicago; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). These exhibitions mark the first and only time the works will travel to the United States since their creation over 500 years ago and they have prompted a scholarly re-examination of Lorenzo Ghiberti's contribution to the history of Italian Renaissance art, as well as of the style and techniques employed by this extremely talented sculptor and metalsmith. The principal goal of this seminar is to re-assess Ghiberti's place in Renaissance art historiography, the bronze statues he made for Orsanmichele, his reliquary shrines, tombs, and the two magnificent and ambitious sets of bronze doors he made for Florence's Baptistery between 1402 and 1452. We will explore Ghiberti's influences, the needs and tastes of his private and corporate patrons, and the style, function, and iconography of his sculptures. We will also discuss the literary significance of Ghiberti's art historical and autobiographical Commentaries, his relationship with his equally famous contemporaries Donatello, Brunelleschi, and Masaccio, and his influence on important Renaissance artists trained in his workshop such as Michelozzo and Benozzo Gozzoli. The course will be supplemented with guest lectures by leading Ghiberti scholars and with a field trip to Chicago to examine the restored panels from the Gates of Paradise.