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 toDonatello, but there is no evidence of this andJohn 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 underFra Filippo Lippi.[4]
At the end of his life, Verrocchio opened a new workshop inVenice, where he was working on the statue ofBartolomeo Colleoni, leaving the Florentine workshop in charge of Lorenzo di Credi. He died in Venice in 1488.[8]
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 in theNational Gallery in London (cat. no.NG2508) of theVirgin 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 ofTobias setting out on his journey with theArchangel 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]
TheBaptism of Christ, now in theUffizi Gallery at Florence, was painted in 1474–1475. In this work Verrocchio was assisted byLeonardo 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 toGiorgio Vasari, Andrea resolved never to touch the brush again because Leonardo, his pupil, had far surpassed him, but later critics consider this story apocryphal.
TheMadonna enthroned with John the Baptist and St Donato is in thePistoia Cathedral. It had been left unfinished and was completed byLorenzo di Credi when Verrocchio was in Venice near the end of his life.
Between 1465 and 1467 he executed the funerary monument toCosimo de' Medici for thecrypt under the altar of the same church, and in 1472 he completed the monument toPiero andGiovanni 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 portrayingChrist and St. Thomas for the central niche of the east facade ofOrsanmichele, which the Tribunale had recently purchased, to replace Donatello's statue ofSt. Louis of Toulouse, which had been commissioned by theParte 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]
Also in 1468 he contracted to make a golden sphere (palla) to be placed on top of thelantern ofBrunelleschi'scupola onthe 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 27January 1601 but was reconstructed in 1602.[15]
Abronze statue ofDavid 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 theSignoria of Florence from Piero's heirs Lorenzo andGiuliano de' Medici in 1476 and is now at theBargello in Florence.[18] Verrocchio'sDavid is a young lad, modestly clad, contrasting withDonatello's provocativeDavid. 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 aPutto with Dolphin, originally intended for a fountain in theMedici villa of Careggi and later brought to Florence for a fountain in thePalazzo della Signoria by theGrand Duke Cosimo de' Medici.[20] It was replaced with a copy by Bruno Bearzi and since 1959 has been kept in a room in thePalazzo Vecchio.[21]
The marble bust of aLady 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]
In 1475 thecondottieroColleoni, a former Captain General for theRepublic 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 thePiazza 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 theScuola 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 andBartolomeo Vellano fromPadua. 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 apedestal made by Leopardi in the piazza in front ofSanti 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'sstatue at Padua of the condottiereErasmo da Narni known asGattamelata 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]
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]
^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).
Brown, David Alan (2003).Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women. Princeton University Press.ISBN978-0691114569
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.
Syson, Luke & Jill Dunkerton: "Andrea del Verrocchio's first surviving panel and other early works" inBurlington Magazine Vol.CLIII No.1299 (June 2011) pp. 368–378.
