DOI chapter:
Chapter X: The Forteguerri Tomb
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62110#0210
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VERROCCHIO
have caused his neglect, and this may possibly be found
in the hostility shown to him by the ecclesiastics. It is
more than probable that Lorenzo dei Medici consulted
Verrocchio on his receipt of the letter and models sent
by the Operai, and that he resented their unwillingness
to confirm the commission given to him by the Council.
Their sharp practice in dealing with him must have
annoyed him profoundly, but above all he must have
resented their preference of the work of Piero Pollaiuolo.
Of what use, he must have felt, to waste his labour on men
so ignorant that they judged the work of an artist so
greatly his inferior as “ more beautiful and artistically
worthy ” than his own. If they could understand and
appreciate so little, the sculpture of his assistants was
good enough for them; Lorenzo di Credi was at least the
equal of Piero Pollaiuolo. For such justifiable reasons the
sculpture may have been abandoned to his assistants, and
even by them it seems to have remained neglected, for
at Verrocchio’s death eleven years later, it was still un-
finished. As will presently be seen, the same neglect and
procrastination was repeated in the execution of the Altar-
piece of the Madonna and Saints, commissioned by the
same Operai di S. Jacopo.
To continue the history of the Monument. The upper
part alone follows the design of Verrocchio—Christ in the
Mandorla, the four supporting Angels, and the three
Virtues below, and even these were not finished in his
sculptor, qui facit sepulturam Rme D. Card.lis Thianensis de forte-
guerris earn quasi conduxerit petit modo pro parte eius mexedis florenos
quinquagenta larghos." (Delib. 65, a c. 43.) Quoted by Chiappelli
e Chiti. “Andrea del Verrocchio in Pistoja,’’ Bullettino Storico
Pistoiese, Anno ii. Fasc. i. p. 41.
VERROCCHIO
have caused his neglect, and this may possibly be found
in the hostility shown to him by the ecclesiastics. It is
more than probable that Lorenzo dei Medici consulted
Verrocchio on his receipt of the letter and models sent
by the Operai, and that he resented their unwillingness
to confirm the commission given to him by the Council.
Their sharp practice in dealing with him must have
annoyed him profoundly, but above all he must have
resented their preference of the work of Piero Pollaiuolo.
Of what use, he must have felt, to waste his labour on men
so ignorant that they judged the work of an artist so
greatly his inferior as “ more beautiful and artistically
worthy ” than his own. If they could understand and
appreciate so little, the sculpture of his assistants was
good enough for them; Lorenzo di Credi was at least the
equal of Piero Pollaiuolo. For such justifiable reasons the
sculpture may have been abandoned to his assistants, and
even by them it seems to have remained neglected, for
at Verrocchio’s death eleven years later, it was still un-
finished. As will presently be seen, the same neglect and
procrastination was repeated in the execution of the Altar-
piece of the Madonna and Saints, commissioned by the
same Operai di S. Jacopo.
To continue the history of the Monument. The upper
part alone follows the design of Verrocchio—Christ in the
Mandorla, the four supporting Angels, and the three
Virtues below, and even these were not finished in his
sculptor, qui facit sepulturam Rme D. Card.lis Thianensis de forte-
guerris earn quasi conduxerit petit modo pro parte eius mexedis florenos
quinquagenta larghos." (Delib. 65, a c. 43.) Quoted by Chiappelli
e Chiti. “Andrea del Verrocchio in Pistoja,’’ Bullettino Storico
Pistoiese, Anno ii. Fasc. i. p. 41.