New Yorkers have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to admire sections of Florence's exquisite 15th-century Baptistery doors after three of its famous panels went on show at the Metropolitan Museum this week.
Lorenzo Ghiberti's famed Gates of Paradise panels, which have just completed a 25-year restoration, are touring the States on a final visit outside Italy before being permanently reintegrated with the doors.
"This is their first and last trip to the US," said the Met's spokesperson, Elyse Topalien, explaining why the exhibit was such a special occasion.
The panels depicting famous stories from the Bible have already been on show in Atlanta and Chicago. After their New York outing they will head for Seattle before returning to Florence for good.
They have been travelling separately to reduce the risk of anything happening to them, with each work of art enclosed within a specially designed, oxygen-free container to minimize the risk of damage.
"They were just too important to travel together," said Patrizio Osticresi of Florence's Museo Opera del Duomo.
Ghiberti was commissioned to design the doors for the Florence Baptistery in 1425, although it took 27 years to complete the 20-foot-high masterpieces.
An admiring Michelangelo later said the doors were worthy of adorning the entrance to Heaven.
The panels selected for the exhibit depict the stories of the Creation, with Adam and Eve, the brothers Jacob and Esau and David and Goliath.
The exhibition will explain the conservation process through the juxtaposition of four bas-reliefs, two of which cleaned and restored and two of which still disfigured.
In addition, a film explains various conservation methods used.
Past techniques involving submerging the panels in mineral solutions have been replaced with groundbreaking laser technology, used to repair damage caused by weather, pollution and the great Florence flood of 1966.
The original doors are now kept in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, while copies have stood in their place since 1990, which will remain the case despite the restoration.
Once the panels have been reintegrated with the doors, they will be placed in a hermetically sealed glass case on show in the same museum.
The restoration was carried out by Florence's Opificio delle Pietre Dure, the world's leading laboratory for the restoration of Renaissance sculpture.
