 The choice of Paolo Uccello ( born in Florence in 1397 ) , who had apprenticed for Lorenzo Ghiberti from June 1407 , busying himself polishing the " Gates of Paradise " , may have been an attempt to find a painter knowledgeable in bronze and statuary , which the fresco was to mimic . For centuries , art historians have regarded Uccello as a less @-@ prominent artist at the time of the Hawkwood commission : he is not mentioned in the preface of Alberti 's De Pictura , nor in Domenico Veneziano 's 1438 letter to Piero di Cosimo de ' Medici listing the major contemporary painters ; nor have art historians even attempted to speculate that he studied the frescoes at the Brancacci Chapel . One difficulty for art historians attempting to gauge Uccello 's reputation at the time of the Hawkwood 's commissioning is the 10 @-@ year blind spot in the reconstruction of Uccello 's career between 1415 — when Uccello was made a member of the Guild of Doctors and Apothecaries ( Arte dei Medici e Speziali ) — and his trip to Venice in 1425 . Similarly , all the works of Uccello 's Venetian period are either missing or else of uncertain attribution : Uccello is thought to have made a no @-@ longer @-@ existing mosaic of St. Peter on the façade of St. Mark 's Basilica , to have collaborated on the design of architectural structures for the mosaics in the Mascoli Chapel of St. Mark 's by Michele Giambono , and possibly to have made some geometrical pattern decorations for the interior of St. Mark 's . 
