Joshua (The crossing of the Jordan river and the fall of the Jericho)

myminifactory

This relief is a marble copy of the bronze plate from the Gates of Paradise, eastern (main) door of the Florence Baptistery. The door was done by Lorenzo Ghiberti in the 15th century and depicts the scenes from the Old Testament. This particular plate is an illustration to Joshua scene of the crossing of the Jordan river and the fall of Jericho. This piece of Ghiberti's work is fascinating because to portray the crumbling of Jericho’s walls before Joshua’s army, Ghiberti incised deep cracks in the fortifications which can be partly seen on the marble copy. Only the master like Ghiberti, who rose immediately to the summit of his profession and stayed there, would be so insouciant as to simulate dreaded cracks in his bronze casting. The original plate is stored at Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.