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Andrea del Verrocchio

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Andrea del Verrocchio
Portrait of Verrocchio by Andrea del Castagno, c. 1470
Portrait of Verrocchio by Andrea del Castagno, c. 1470
Born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni
c. 1435
Florence, Republic of Florence
Died 1488 (aged 52–53)
Venice, Republic of Venice
Notable work paintings:
Tobias and the Angel
The Baptism of Christ (with Leonardo da Vinci)
bronze sculptures:
Christ and St. Thomas
Putto with a Dolphin
David
Equestrian Statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni
stone sculpture:
Dama col mazzolino
Movement Italian Renaissance

Andrea del Verrocchio (/vəˈroʊkioʊ/ və-ROH-kee-oh,[1][2] US also /-ˈrɔːk-/ -RAW-,[3] Italian: [anˈdrɛːa del verˈrɔkkjo]; born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni; c. 1435 – 1488) was an Italian sculptor, painter and goldsmith who was a master of a workshop in Florence. He was the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci, who assisted in painting The Baptism of Christ.

He became known as Verrocchio after the surname of his master, a goldsmith. Few paintings are attributed to him with certainty, but his pupils also included Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi. As a sculptor, his best known work is the Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice.

Life

Verrocchio was born in Florence in around 1435. His father, Michele di Francesco Cioni, initially worked as a tile and brick maker, then later as a tax collector. Verrocchio never married, and had to provide financial support for some members of his family. He was at first apprenticed to a goldsmith. It has been suggested that he was later apprenticed to Donatello, but there is no evidence of this and John Pope-Hennessy considered that it is contradicted by the style of his early works. It has been suggested that he was trained as a painter under Fra Filippo Lippi.[4]

Little is known about his life. His main works are dated in his last twenty years and his advancement owed much to the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici and his son Piero. His workshop was in Florence where he was a member of the Guild of St Luke. Several great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi passed through his workshop as apprentices. Beyond this, artists like Domenico Ghirlandaio, Francesco Botticini, and Pietro Perugino were also involved and their early works can be hard to distinguish from works by Verrocchio.[5] Giovanni Santi records that Botticelli, Luca Signorelli, and a young Filippino Lippi also visited or worked in Verrocchio's studio.[6] Of the artist's pedagogy the Florentine poet Ugolino Verino wrote: "Whatever painters have that is good they drank from Verrocchio's spring".[7]

At the end of his life, Verrocchio opened a new workshop in Venice, where he was working on the statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, leaving the Florentine workshop in charge of Lorenzo di Credi. He died in Venice in 1488.[8]

Painting

Despite the importance of Verrocchio's workshop in the training of younger painters, very few paintings are universally recognised as his own work and there are many problems of attribution.[9]

A painting of the Madonna with Seated Child in tempera on panel (now in the Gemäldegalerie of Berlin State Museums) is considered an early work of 1468–1470.[10]

A painting in the National Gallery in London (cat. no. NG2508) of the Virgin and Child with Two Angels in tempera on panel, which had not previously been attributed to Verrocchio, was cleaned and restored about 2010 and is now attributed to him with a date of about 1467–1469.[4]

A small painting on panel of Tobias setting out on his journey with the Archangel Raphael, carrying the fish with which he was to heal his father's blindness, was probably painted as a private devotional picture. It is an early work which has formerly been attributed to Pollaiuolo and other artists. Covi thinks that it was probably painted with assistance from Ghirlandaio. It is now in London at the National Gallery.[11]

The Baptism of Christ, now in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, was painted in 1474–1475. In this work Verrocchio was assisted by Leonardo da Vinci, then a youth and a member of his workshop, who painted the angel on the left and the part of the background above. According to Giorgio Vasari, Andrea resolved never to touch the brush again because Leonardo, his pupil, had far surpassed him, but later critics consider this story apocryphal.

The Madonna enthroned with John the Baptist and St Donato is in the Pistoia Cathedral. It had been left unfinished and was completed by Lorenzo di Credi when Verrocchio was in Venice near the end of his life.

Sculpture

Around 1465 Verrocchio is believed to have worked on the lavabo of the Old Sacristy in San Lorenzo, Florence.[12]

Between 1465 and 1467 he executed the funerary monument to Cosimo de' Medici for the crypt under the altar of the same church, and in 1472 he completed the monument to Piero and Giovanni de' Medici in the Old Sacristy.

In 1467 the Tribunale della Mercanzia, the judicial organ of the Guilds in Florence, commissioned from Verrocchio a bronze group portraying Christ and St. Thomas for the central niche of the east facade of Orsanmichele, which the Tribunale had recently purchased, to replace Donatello's statue of St. Louis of Toulouse, which had been commissioned by the Parte Guelfa, that had lost their power. Verrocchio therefore had the problem of placing two statues (more than life size) in a niche originally intended for one. As Covi says, the problem was resolved "in a most felicitous manner". The work was placed in position in 1483 and "has been acclaimed since the day of its unveiling and almost without exception recognised as a masterpiece."[13]

In 1468 Verrocchio made a bronze candlestick (1.57 metres high), now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, for the Signoria of Florence.[14]

Also in 1468 he contracted to make a golden sphere (palla) to be placed on top of the lantern of Brunelleschi's cupola on the Duomo in Florence. The ball was ingeniously made of sheets of copper soldered together and hammered into shape and then gilded. It was completed by the spring of 1471. (The cross on top was made by other hands.) The ball was struck by lightning and fell on 27 January 1601 but was reconstructed in 1602.[15]

In the early 1470s he made a voyage to Rome, where he made a relief for the Funerary Monument of Francesca Tornabuoni for Santa Maria sopra Minerva (now in the Bargello). In 1474 he executed the Funerary Monument to Cardinal Niccolo Forteguerri for the Cathedral of Pistoia, which he left unfinished.[16]

A bronze statue of David was commissioned by Piero de' Medici. On grounds of style and technique it was dated by Butterfield to the mid-1460s; he considered it a masterpiece of Verrocchio's early career.[17] It was purchased by the Signoria of Florence from Piero's heirs Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici in 1476 and is now at the Bargello in Florence.[18] Verrocchio's David is a young lad, modestly clad, contrasting with Donatello's provocative David. For this figure, the master is purported to have used the young Leonardo, a newcomer to his workshop, as his model.[19]

At a date unknown (suggestions range from 1465 to 1480: Pope-Hennessy said about 1470) he finished in bronze a Putto with Dolphin, originally intended for a fountain in the Medici villa of Careggi and later brought to Florence for a fountain in the Palazzo della Signoria by the Grand Duke Cosimo de' Medici.[20] It was replaced with a copy by Bruno Bearzi and since 1959 has been kept in a room in the Palazzo Vecchio.[21]

The marble bust of a Lady with a Bunch of Flowers (Dama col mazzolino) at the Bargello is probably from the later 1470s. The identity of the lady is unknown.[22]

Equestrian Statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni

In 1475 the condottiero Colleoni, a former Captain General for the Republic of Venice, died and by his will left a substantial part of his estate to the Republic on condition that a statue of himself should be commissioned and set up in the Piazza San Marco. In 1479 the Republic announced that it would accept the legacy, but that (as statues were not permitted in the Piazza) the statue would be placed in the open space in front of the Scuola San Marco. A competition was arranged to enable a sculptor to be selected. Three sculptors competed for the contract, Verrocchio from Florence, Alessandro Leopardi from Venice and Bartolomeo Vellano from Padua. Verrocchio made a model of his proposed sculpture using wood and black leather, while the others made models of wax and clay. The three models were exhibited in Venice in 1483 and the contract was awarded to Verrocchio. He then opened a workshop in Venice and made the final clay model which was ready to be cast in bronze, but he died in 1488, before this was done. He had asked that his pupil Lorenzo di Credi, who was then in charge of his workshop in Florence, should be entrusted with the finishing of the statue, but after the considerable delay the Venetian state commissioned Leopardi to do this. The statue was eventually erected on a pedestal made by Leopardi in the piazza in front of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, where it stands today.[23]

Leopardi cast the bronze very successfully and the statue is universally admired, but Pope-Hennessy suggests that, if Verrocchio had been able to do this himself, he would have finished the head and other parts more smoothly and made it even better than it is.[24] Although it was not placed where Colleoni had intended, Passavent emphasised how fine it looks in its actual position, writing that "the magnificent sense of movement in this figure is shown to superb advantage in its present setting"[25] and that, as sculpture, "it far surpasses anything the century had yet aspired to or thought possible".[26] He points out that both man and horse are equally fine and together are inseparable parts of the sculpture.

Verrocchio is unlikely to have ever seen Colleoni and the statue is not a portrait of the man but of the idea of a strong and ruthless military commander "bursting with titanic power and energy".[27] This is in contrast to Donatello's statue at Padua of the condottiere Erasmo da Narni known as Gattamelata with its "air of calm command" and all Verrocchio's effort "has been devoted to the rendering of movement and of a sense of strain and energy".[28]

Portrayals in media

Verrocchio is a character in Phil Melanson's historical novel "Florenzer", where he is featured as Leonardo da Vinci's mentor, is portrayed as a prolific artist, and provides a glimpse into the lives of LGBTQIA+ men living in Florence in the 1400s.[29]

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Andrea del Verrocchio — Born at Florence, 1435; d. at Venice, 1488. He was called Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, but for his true name he substituted that of his master, the goldsmith Giuliano Verrocchio. Some authorities hold that the frequented the studies of Donatello and Baldovinetti, but in any case the impress of his early education with a goldsmith is strongly evident in his work. He always retained a very keen taste for delicate chasing, which taste is especially manifested in the equestrian statue of Colleoni, wherein the horse's head and the harness are chased like a piece of jewellery. He excelled in depicting the charms of children and womanly grace. Nevertheless he was not married, but lived in the household of a married sister, who had many children. Although favoured with the friendship of Lorenzo de' Medici, honoured with important commissions, and reputed the greatest artist of his time, he seems never to have known the favours of fortune. His art, which often shone with a radiantly smiling beauty, seems to have been the reflection of a happy and cheerful life. He was both painter and sculptor, but chiefly the latter.

His chief sculptural works were: the tomb of Piero and Giovanni de' Medici, in the Church of San Lorenzo, in marble and bronze, without religious emblem. His "David" in bronze was in the national museum (the Bargello), Florence. The "Child holding a dolphin", in bronze, made to adorn a fountain of the Villa Medici at Careggi, is in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. These three works were ordered from Verrocchio by Lorenzo the Magnificent. In the terra-cotta "Madonna" made for the hospital of Santa Maria Novella "supreme distinction of thought is united to the most scrupulous observation of nature" (A. Michel). The marble bust of the "Flower-girl" is in the Bargello. The silver bas-relief of the "Decollation of St. John the Baptist", which adorned the altar of the baptistery of San Giovanni, is preserved n the cathedral museum (Opera del Duomo), Florence. The marble monument erected in memory of Cardinal Fortteguera in the cathedral of Pistoia was designed by Verrocchio but executed by his pupils.

Bronze masterpieces

His two masterpieces, both in bronze, were the "Incredulity of St. Thomas" (1483) and the "Colleone" (1479-88). The first group, wherein the artist has touchingly represented Christ urging the doubting Apostle to put his hand in His pierced side, was ordered by the Council of Merchants and placed outside the Church of San Michele, in a beautiful niche made by Donatello. But Verrocchio erred in making so much of the draperies, for this exaggerated realism greatly distracts the attention from a subject so pathetic in itself. The second work was the splendid equestrian statue which the Republic of Venice ordered to honour the memory of the celebrated condottiere, Bartolommeo Colleoni of Bergamo, who had commanded the Venetian troops. While casting it Verrocchio was seized with a chill, which ended fatally. The statute was completed by the Venetian Alessandro Leopardi, who had the audacity to sign a work of which he had only finished the casting and perfected the details. The statute was not erected until 1495; it is still to be seen on the Piazza dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Assuredly, "we have a right to say that this equestrian statute is the finest in the world" (J. Burckhardt).

Only two paintings can with certainty be assigned to Verrocchio, the "Baptism of Christ", which was made for the Convent of San Salvi at the gates of Florence, and which is now at the Academy of Fine Arts n the same city; and the "Madonna" of the Duomo of Pistoia, long ascribed to Lorenzo di Credi, on the word of Vasari, but which a document published by Signor Chiti assigns to Verrocchio. The "Baptism" (c. 1470) is an oil painting, at that time still a great novelty in Florence. Accordingly, it shows traces of grouping and experiment. Its different parts are of unequal value, which led Vasari to assert boldly that the angel respectfully guarding the garments of Christ is by Leonardo da Vinci. It is more perfect than the other figures in the picture. The "Baptism" marked an epoch in the history of Italian painting, because the accuracy of design and the refinement of the model were an innovation whereby Verrocchio broke with the school of the frescoists, less correct and broader in execution. But these technical studies, so evident especially in the angular figure of St. John Baptist, explain why Vasari called Verrocchio's manner "alquanto dura e crudetta". The perfection of the landscape which forms the background of the picture foreshadows modern art, because "for the first time the artist gives attentive observance to the study of values, the gradation of colours, especially to the unity of the figures with the environment" (M. Raymond). This "somewhat rough and crude" manner disappears in the "Madonna" of Pistoia. This delightful composition represents the Blessed Virgin between St. John the Baptist and St. Zeno, supporting the Infant Jesus Who lifts His little hand to bless.

Paintings, pupils, and legacy

Critics do not agree with regard to the other pictures ascribed to Verrocchio; nevertheless he may be unhesitatingly credited with the beautiful "Annunciation" at the Uffizi, and the graceful "Madonna with the Carnation", in the Old Pinacothek at Munich. The authorship of the Madonnas at the museums of Berlin and London is disputed. Verrocchio was perhaps the greatest artist of the second half of the fifteenth century. On the boundary of two ages, between the old Florentine school, about to disappear, and the School of the Renaissance in course of formation, he was not, like the masters of preceding periods, a Christian artist, because he rejected the purpose of placing art at the service of a moral and religious idea; he was not as yet an artist of the Renaissance neglecting the soul to study the body, for he did not attempt to imitate antiquity; instead of drawing his inspiration from the statutes which he has bequeathed to us, and of becoming exclusively enamoured of the plastic beauty of corporeal forms, he preferred to observe living nature, and like his predecessors continued to subordinate form to the expression of the feelings of the soul, but, more skilful than they, he succeeded in perfecting his methods of expression, because his drawing is more correct and his modelling more scientific.

Hence Verrocchio's powerful influence over painting; his studio was the centre of resistance to the invasion of antique influence; and his pupils Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino, and Leonardo da Vinci continued to spread the doctrine of the Florentine School. This doctrine may be summarized as follows: art should be spiritual, that is, it should make form serve the expression of thought and sentiment.

VASARI, Le Vita de piu eccellenti pittori, ed. MILANESI, III (Florence, 1878), 357-82; SEMPER, Andrea del Verrocchio (Leipzig, 1878); MUNTZ, Histoire de l'art pendant la Renaissance, II (Paris, 1891); CHITI, Andrea del Verrocchio in Pistoia in Bolletin storica pistoiese (1899); MACKOWSKY, Verrocchio (Leipzig, 1901); BURCKHARDT and BODE, Der Cicerone (Leipzig, 1904), Fr. tr. GERARD, II (Paris, 1896), 373-77, 557-58; CRUTTWELL, Verrocchio (London, 1904); REYMOND, Verrocchio (Paris, 1906); VENTURI, Storia dell' Arte italiana, VI (Milan, 1908), 706-34; VI, pt. I (1911), 776-86; MICHEL, Histoire de l'Art, IV, pt. I (Paris, 1909), 128-135.

References

  1. Back to citation "Verrocchio". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  2. Back to citation "Verrocchio". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  3. Back to citation "Verrocchio". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. OCLC 1032680871. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  4. Back to citation occurrence 4.0 Back to citation occurrence 4.1 Syson & Dunkerton, p. 378.
  5. Back to citation Passavent, p. 45.
  6. Back to citation Becherucci, Luisa (1969). The Complete Work of Raphael. New York: Reynal and Co., William Morrow and Company. p. 11.
  7. Back to citation Kleinbub, Christian (6 November 2019). "Andrea del Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence". Brooklynrail.org.
  8. Back to citation For life see Passavent, pp. 5–9. Pope-Hennessy, p. 310.
  9. Back to citation Covi, p. 174.
  10. Back to citation Passavent, pp. 45–48.
  11. Back to citation Passavent, pp. 48–51 & 188. Covi, pp. 201–203.
  12. Back to citation The lavabo has not always been accepted as his work. Covi reviews at length the various attributions it has received, but he prefers to think it was executed by Verrocchio and his workshop in the period 1464–1469 (Covi, pp. 50–56).
  13. Back to citation Covi, pp. 71–87.
  14. Back to citation Covi, pp. 56–60.
  15. Back to citation Covi, pp. 63–69.
  16. Back to citation Cruttwell, Maud (1904). Verrocchio. Duckworth and Company. pp. 173–176.
  17. Back to citation Butterfield, pp. 18–31.
  18. Back to citation Passavent, pp. 173–174.
  19. Back to citation Good photographs can be found at the [www.wga.hu/index1.html Web Gallery of Art].
  20. Back to citation Passavent, pp. 174–176.
  21. Back to citation Passavent, p. 174.
  22. Back to citation Passavent, pp. 180–181.
  23. Back to citation Passavent, pp. 62–3.
  24. Back to citation Pope-Hennessy, pp. 65 & 315.
  25. Back to citation Passavent, p. 65.
  26. Back to citation Passavent, p. 62.
  27. Back to citation Passavent, p. 64.
  28. Back to citation Peter & Linda Murray: "Verrocchio." In: Penguin Dictionary of Art & Artists.
  29. Back to citation Melanson, Phil (10 June 2025). Florenzer. Liveright. ISBN 9781324095033.

Further reading

  • Brown, David Alan (2003). Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691114569
  • Butterfield, Andrew (1997). The Sculptures of Andrea del Verrocchio. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300071948.
  • Covi, Dario A. (2005). Andrea del Verrocchio: life and work. Florence: Leo S. Olschki. ISBN 9788822254207.
  • Freiberg, Jack (2010): "Verrocchio's Putto and Medici Love". David A. Levine, & Jack Freiberg (Eds.), Medieval Renaissance Baroque: A Cat's Cradle for Marilyn Aronberg Lavin. New York: Italica Press, pp. 83–100.
  • Passavant, Günter (1969). Verrocchio: sculptures, paintings and drawings. London: Phaidon.
  • Pope-Hennessy, John: Italian Renaissance Sculpture (London 1958)
  • Syson, Luke & Jill Dunkerton: "Andrea del Verrocchio's first surviving panel and other early works" in Burlington Magazine Vol. CLIII No.1299 (June 2011) pp. 368–378.
  • Wivel, Matthias (22 July 2010). "Traces of Soul, Mind, and Body". The Metabunker. Archived from the original on 30 October 2013. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
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