Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455)

Lorenzo Ghiberti was born near Florence in 1378. His father was a goldsmith and taught his son everything he knew about the craft.

In 1401 Lorenzo competed with Filippo Brunelleschi, a fellow goldsmith, and others for the honor of designing and casting new bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery (Battistero di San Giovanni). He won. A disappointed Brunelleschi abandoned sculpture for future glory as an architect.

The Bible: Old and New Testaments

Our Christian Bible is not actually one book but a collection of 66 small books. These books fall into one of two main sections: the Old Testament or the New Testament.

Testament means witness. The books of the Old Testament witness to God in ways that anticipate his coming to us in Jesus Christ. The books of the New Testament witness to the surprising ways that Jesus fulfilled all that was said of him in anticipation and, by doing so, gave us a whole new world.

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)

Filippo Brunelleschi was born in Florence in 1377. Little is known of his childhood and youth. He did join the silk guild, one of the seven major guilds of Florence at the time, and as a member of it became a master goldsmith in 1398.

In 1401 Filippo competed with Lorenzo Ghiberti, a fellow goldsmith, and others to win the honor of designing and casting new bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery. The honor went to Lorenzo.

Florence: Santa Maria del Fiore

Florentines built their first cathedral in the early 400s and dedicated it to St. Reparata. By the late 1200s that church building needed significant repairs and could no longer accommodate all the people wishing to worship there on Sundays. Municipal leaders decided to have a new one built. Construction started in 1296.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)

Giovanni Boccaccio was born in or near Florence in 1313, the (likely illegitimate) son of a minor Florentine banker. His father made an advantageous marriage, got appointed head of the Bardi bank in Naples, and moved there with his family in 1326.

In Naples Giovanni studied accounting and then church law but never cared for either. Instead he pursued reading, writing, and relationships with women. All three benefited from his access to the royal court made possible by his father’s role as financial advisor to the king of Naples.

Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337)

Giotto was the first significant painter of the Renaissance--the rebirth of classical culture which began in Latinia (see "Map of Olympia" above). He depicted humans more realistically than painters had for a thousand years.

He apparently was the son of a blacksmith and born around 1267 in a village near Florence. Little is known of his childhood and youth.

Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374)

Francesco Petrarch was born on July 20, 1304, in a small town in Tuscany near Florence. Although his father and Dante were friends, Francesco later claimed he never read Dante’s Divine Comedy.

At his father’s insistence, he studied law for seven long years (1319-26) at universities in Montpelier and Bologna. He never, however, became a lawyer. He believed the legal system made a commodity of justice and simply sold it to the highest bidder. In 1325 he bought his first book: The City of God by Augustine of Hippo.