Paradise Regained

Michelangelo said that the doors might "fittingly stand at the gates of Paradise." All Florentines of the 1450s agreed that their Baptistery's portal sculpted by Lorenzo Ghiberti, was worthy of immortality. The double doors, 16 ft. by 9 ft., cast of bronze and overlaid with gold, held ten panels that told Old Testament tales in such grace ful relief that the metal seemed brushed on like oils.

Immortality has no guarantees on earth. Only the beauty of Ghiberti's doors saved them from centuries of soldiers smelting Renaissance masterworks into cannon. When World War II broke out, the Italian government or dered the doors taken down for safety.

As double insurance.Master Foundry-man Bruno Bearzi was commissioned to make plaster impressions and cast bronze replicas. Since Bearzi used the waste-mold process, in which the plaster is broken off, only one set of duplicates was made. In 1948 the scrubbed originals were rehinged at the famed San Giovanni Baptistery. Five years ago. San Francisco's Protestant Episcopal' Grace Cathedral, under construction in traditional Gothic style, commissioned the completion of the duplicate doors Now the replicated Ghibertis have a godly home too.

A third of the way around the world from Florence.Bearzi 's two-ton doules opened last week on their first services in the newly consecrated cathe dral. In some ways, the doors are closer 3 mint condition than the originals in Florence. After centuries, much of Ghiberti's detail was too weathered and worn to emerge clearly. So, after gilding the bronze, Bearzi's foundry chased the Renaissance precision touch back on. One craftsman spent six weeks detailing a postcard-size section, bringing out each and every feather on a bird no bigger than one-sixth of a postage stamp. What took Ghiberti 27 years to conceive and execute took eight man-years of labor just to imitate.

Perhaps only in the U.S. would someone have conceived of repeating the gates to heaven. Yet, shining in their new cathedral portals, the doors also double Ghiberti's chance to survive, astonish and delight his viewers as freshly as he did in Florence five centuries ago.

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