Beginnings Ghiberti’s mother had married Cione Ghiberti in 1370, and they lived in Pelago, near Florence; at some point she went to Florence and lived there as the common-law wife of a goldsmith named Bartolo di Michele. They were married in 1406 after Cione died, and it was in their home that Lorenzo Ghiberti spent his youth. It is not certain which man was Ghiberti’s father, for he claimed each as his father at separate times. But throughout his early years, Lorenzo considered himself Bartolo’s son, and it was Bartolo who trained the boy as a goldsmith. Ghiberti also received training as a painter; as he reported in the autobiographical part of his writings, he left Florence in 1400 with a painter to work in the town of Pesaro for its ruler, Sigismondo Malatesta.