Storming the ‘Gates of Paradise’

Lorenzo Ghiberti’s place in art history is firmly secured, thanks in part to fine arts professor
Gary Radke ’73. Since last spring, Radke has served as curator of The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Renaissance Masterpiece, an exhibition that has been mounted at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Seattle Art Museum (through March 6, 2008). The exhibition features three restored panels from Ghiberti’s gilt bronze doors of the Baptistery in Florence.

“’The Gates’ rank among the greatest creations of Renaissance art,” says Radke, whose exhibition catalog was named by The New York Times as one of the top art books of 2007. “Such was their importance that Michelangelo reportedly gave them the name by which they’re known today: ‘The Gates of Paradise.’”

Radke’s next project involves serving as a scholarly advisor to “Michelangelo: The Man and the Myth,” an exhibition running this summer on campus and this fall at New York’s Palitz Gallery.