File:Verocchio (1904) (14597844418).jpg

Identifier: verocchio00crut (find matches)
Title: Verocchio
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Cruttwell, Maud
Subjects: Verrocchio, Andrea del, 1435?-1488
Publisher: London : Duckworth New York, Scribner
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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of theformer—The Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi—afigure of a warrior on horseback, which bears the closestresemblance in feature and expression to the statue ofVerrocchio. We have again the keen face of Dante, dashedon the panel with a few bold brush-sweeps. The warriorstretches his arm with a splendid gesture of command. Itis Bartolommeo Colleoni in action, and, once observed, thetwo figures become inseparably connected in the mind. Thepainting was begun by Leonardo in 1481, the year in whichVerrocchios model of the horse was despatched to Venice.It is probable that the sketch is the result of some mutualstudies by the two artists executed while Verrocchio was atwork on the statue. The spirited head of the horse re-sembles also that of Verrocchio, having the same nobleexpression, the same accentuation of bone, and the sametufted forelock.* * It is interesting also to observe the impression made upon AlbrechtDurer by the statue of Verrocchio. In his engraving of the Knight, J
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u s Cd> tdN o oi CQ WD < bu < 73 CnO t: w 73 o <* THE COLLEONI STATUE 193 antique workmanship, and the popular legend ran that itwas the surviving fragment of an antique bronze horsewhich formerly stood before the Cathedral, said to havebeen magically cast by Virgil, and which, owing to thesuperstitious veneration with which it was regarded by thepeople, was melted down by the Archbishop in 1322, andconverted into a bell for the palace chapel. The statement(unsupported by any evidence) that the head formed partof this statue, was first made as early as 1566 by GiovanniTarcagnota in his book Del sito et lodi de la cita diNapoli. Vasari, in the first edition of his Lives of thePainters (1550), speaks of it as antique, but in the secondedition (1568) he corrects his former statement in the fol-lowing words: In the house of the Count of Mataloneis a head of a horse by the hand of Donato, so beautifulthat many believe it to be antique. * Vasari, as is so oftenthe case, seems to

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