mewhat surprising choice of the twenty-year-old painter Ghiberti for this important commission. Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's entries (Hartt 128) for the competition have survived and as a symbol, however muted, of the noble city delivered in its direst moment Ghiberti's Isaac is clearly the winner.
But the qualities that led to his selection had much more to do with Ghiberti's use of classical models. The decision was a bitterly contested one and Brunelleschi's supporters could cite his own use of the antique in his sample composition. But Brunelleschi opted for a "rigorous, planar composition" in which all the elements are presented separately and the outlines of each element, rather than its modeling in space, provides the dynamic (Seymour 38). Hence the vigorous action in Brunelleschi's entry which was wholly unnecessary in Ghiberti's where the carefully planned rhythms of the graceful landscape and figures lead inevitably to the dynamic center of the composition--the face of Isaac. By "modelling up the forms into light and space" Ghiberti
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