Ghiberti and the Antique

Extract

A correct understanding of the significance Antiquity held in the Renaissance will depend on two major factors: a precise knowledge of the ancient sources available to the 15 th and 16th centuries; and a careful evaluation of the way these sources were interpreted. With an eye to these problems a number of studies have been under way in recent years along with the Census of Antiques known to the Renaissance, begun at the initiative of a group of scholars by Phyllis Bober under the aegis of the Warburg Institute in London. Ruth Kennedy's study on Titian and the Antique; Phyllis Lehmann's work on Mantegna; and a number of theses at Smith College, Yale, and New York University bear witness to this revival of interest in a never-solved problem.