287. Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435-1488), Italian,

Equestrian Statue of the condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni,

1480-1495. Gilded bronze, h: 395 cm (without base).

Campo di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.

 

 

Andrea del Verrocchio

(1435 Florence - 1472 Rome)

 

Goldsmith, sculptor and Italian painter, Andrea del Verrocchio took the name of his master, the goldsmith Giuliano Verocchi. As a painter, he played an important role, because both Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi worked for a long time in his studio as his students and assistants. There is only one painting that we can attribute, with certainty, to Verrocchio his illustration of the Baptism of Christ located in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. As a sculptor, one of his first pieces was the very beautiful marble medallion of the Madonna that is located at the top of the tomb of Leonardo Bruni de Arezzo, in the church of Santa Croce in Florence. Around 1475, Verrocchio modelled and cast a mould for the delicate bronze statue of David, and one year later finished part of the relief of the silver altarpiece of the Florentine baptistery, representing the Decapitation of Saint John the Baptist. Between 1467 and 1483, he was in the process of creating the bronze group sculpture of the Incredulity of Saint Thomas, located in one of the external apses of the Orsanmichele. Verrocchio’s masterpiece was the colossal bronze equestrian statue depicting the Venetian general Bartolomeo Colleoni that can be seen in the Piazza de SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. Verrocchio received the commission of this statue in 1479, but he had barely finished the model when he died in 1488. In despite of his request demanding that the casting be finished by his student Lorenzo di Credi, the Venetian senate entrusted the work to Alessandro Leopardi, and the statue was inaugurated in 1506.