DOI chapter:
Chapter XIV: The Colleoni Statue
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62110#0282
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VERROCCHIO
is easily understood. Leopardi was equally well known
and appreciated in the Venetian State ; but the selection
of the Florentine Verrocchio by a foreign Government
must certainly have been due to some convincing proof of
his capability, not only as a bronze founder, but as a
master of equine anatomy. I desire to lay special stress
on this, with reference to a certain work to be considered
later—the bronze Head of a Horse in the Naples Museum,
there attributed to Donatello—which I consider to be by
Verrocchio, to have been executed by him several years
before the commission for the Colleoni statue, and to have
attained a celebrity among the princes and artists of
Italy. Vasari mentions in his collection of drawings two
studies of horses by Verrocchio, with proportional measure-
ments for enlarging, and a terra-cotta relief of a horse’s
head copied from the antique.* The existence of these
proves his interest in horse anatomy. Of this more will
be said presently. Here it is sufficient to draw attention
to the probability that Verrocchio must have already
acquired renown as a sculptor of horses, to have received
the commission of the Venetian Republic for a work of so
much importance.
The three sculptors, Vellano, Leopardi, and Verrocchio,
received the commission to prepare a model of the horse
immediately after the deliberation of the Signoria in 1479,
and by the summer of 1481 that of Verrocchio was already
completed. It is certain that he made studies in Venice
for the model, for, as it will be seen later, the resemblance
* " Sonvi ancora due cavalli, con il modo delle misure e centine da
farli di piccoli grandi, che venghino proporzionati e senza errori: e di
rilievo di terra-cotta e appresso di me una testa di cavallo ritratta dall’
antico, che e cosa rara.” (Vasari, iii. 364.)
VERROCCHIO
is easily understood. Leopardi was equally well known
and appreciated in the Venetian State ; but the selection
of the Florentine Verrocchio by a foreign Government
must certainly have been due to some convincing proof of
his capability, not only as a bronze founder, but as a
master of equine anatomy. I desire to lay special stress
on this, with reference to a certain work to be considered
later—the bronze Head of a Horse in the Naples Museum,
there attributed to Donatello—which I consider to be by
Verrocchio, to have been executed by him several years
before the commission for the Colleoni statue, and to have
attained a celebrity among the princes and artists of
Italy. Vasari mentions in his collection of drawings two
studies of horses by Verrocchio, with proportional measure-
ments for enlarging, and a terra-cotta relief of a horse’s
head copied from the antique.* The existence of these
proves his interest in horse anatomy. Of this more will
be said presently. Here it is sufficient to draw attention
to the probability that Verrocchio must have already
acquired renown as a sculptor of horses, to have received
the commission of the Venetian Republic for a work of so
much importance.
The three sculptors, Vellano, Leopardi, and Verrocchio,
received the commission to prepare a model of the horse
immediately after the deliberation of the Signoria in 1479,
and by the summer of 1481 that of Verrocchio was already
completed. It is certain that he made studies in Venice
for the model, for, as it will be seen later, the resemblance
* " Sonvi ancora due cavalli, con il modo delle misure e centine da
farli di piccoli grandi, che venghino proporzionati e senza errori: e di
rilievo di terra-cotta e appresso di me una testa di cavallo ritratta dall’
antico, che e cosa rara.” (Vasari, iii. 364.)