, Florence ,
1467–1483, in the niche '' by
Donatello at
Orsanmichele , Washington Around 1465 Verrocchio is believed to have worked on the
lavabo of the
Old Sacristy in
San Lorenzo, Florence. 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." In 1468 Verrocchio made a bronze candlestick (1.57metres high), now in the
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, for the
Signoria of Florence. Also in 1468 he contracted to make a golden sphere ('''') 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 27January 1601 but was reconstructed in 1602. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. It was replaced with a copy by Bruno Bearzi and since 1959 has been kept in a room in the
Palazzo Vecchio. 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.
Equestrian Statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni '' in
Venice, Verrocchio, 1483–1488, cast by
Leopardi In 1475 the
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. 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. 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" and that, as sculpture, "it far surpasses anything the century had yet aspired to or thought possible". 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". 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". ==Portrayals in media==