DOI chapter:
Chapter III: Earliest Works
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62110#0063
EARLIEST WORKS
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often placed by the critics at a late period in Verrocchio’s
life, in order to make possible Vasari’s statement that part
of it was painted by Leonardo, a statement which rests
upon no secure basis.
Albertini, it is true, writing before Vasari, makes a
similar statement in the slight record of the picture he
gives in his “ Memoriale.” * His words are amplified by
Vasari both in his Life of Verrocchio and in that of
Leonardo, and his detailed and trivial anecdote has grown
so popular and deep-rooted a tradition, that it is with diffi-
culty the mind can free itself sufficiently to examine the
truth of the assertion without prejudice.
Vasari tells us that Leonardo, then a boy in Verrocchio’s
bottega, helped him with this Altarpiece, and painted
thereon an Angel so much more beautiful than Verrocchio’s
own work, that he, enraged to be outdone by a mere child,
resolved never again to touch a brush, and from that time
onward renounced entirely the art of painting.j-
It is perhaps unnecessary to remark on the puerile senti-
ment Vasari attributes to Verrocchio, a petty jealousy little
in keeping with what is known of the man or the epoch.
It is enough to point out that the statement of his renun-
ciation of painting is by documentary evidence proved to
be false, since we have records that not only was he
employed by the Medici as a painter at intervals during
his whole career, but in the very last years of his life was
engaged on the Altarpiece for the Duomo of Pistoia, part
of which is certainly executed by his own hand. Besides
these works, proved by existing documents to have been
* “ Lascio in Sancto Salvi tavole bellissimi & uno Angelo di
Leonardo Vinci.” Albertini, “Memoriale,” Firenze, 1510.
t Vasari, Ed. Sansoni, Firenze, 1878, iii. 366, and iv. 22.
43
often placed by the critics at a late period in Verrocchio’s
life, in order to make possible Vasari’s statement that part
of it was painted by Leonardo, a statement which rests
upon no secure basis.
Albertini, it is true, writing before Vasari, makes a
similar statement in the slight record of the picture he
gives in his “ Memoriale.” * His words are amplified by
Vasari both in his Life of Verrocchio and in that of
Leonardo, and his detailed and trivial anecdote has grown
so popular and deep-rooted a tradition, that it is with diffi-
culty the mind can free itself sufficiently to examine the
truth of the assertion without prejudice.
Vasari tells us that Leonardo, then a boy in Verrocchio’s
bottega, helped him with this Altarpiece, and painted
thereon an Angel so much more beautiful than Verrocchio’s
own work, that he, enraged to be outdone by a mere child,
resolved never again to touch a brush, and from that time
onward renounced entirely the art of painting.j-
It is perhaps unnecessary to remark on the puerile senti-
ment Vasari attributes to Verrocchio, a petty jealousy little
in keeping with what is known of the man or the epoch.
It is enough to point out that the statement of his renun-
ciation of painting is by documentary evidence proved to
be false, since we have records that not only was he
employed by the Medici as a painter at intervals during
his whole career, but in the very last years of his life was
engaged on the Altarpiece for the Duomo of Pistoia, part
of which is certainly executed by his own hand. Besides
these works, proved by existing documents to have been
* “ Lascio in Sancto Salvi tavole bellissimi & uno Angelo di
Leonardo Vinci.” Albertini, “Memoriale,” Firenze, 1510.
t Vasari, Ed. Sansoni, Firenze, 1878, iii. 366, and iv. 22.