The Equestrian Monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni is a bronze statue (height 395 centimeters without the base) by Andrea del Verrocchio, built between 1480 and 1488 and located in Venice in Campo San Zanipolo. This is the second equestrian statue of the Renaissance, after the monument to Gattamelata by Donatello in Padua, from 1446-1453.
In 1479 the Republic of Venice decreed the construction of an
equestrian monument for the leader Bartolomeo Colleoni, who died in
1475, to be placed in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo. In 1480 he entrusted
its execution to Andrea Verrocchio, who started the work in Florence in
his workshop. In 1481 the wax model was sent to Venice, where the artist
moved in 1486 to attend to the lost wax casting of the bronze.
Andrea died in 1488 when the work was unfinished (although a clay model
certainly already existed), and in his will he had named the Florentine
Lorenzo di Credi as heir and executor of the unfinished work, but the
Venetian Signoria preferred him Alessandro Leopardi, a local artist. The
reassignment must not be justified by the fact that Lorenzo was
essentially a painter: it was in fact customary, in a multi-purpose
workshop such as Verrocchio's, for the students to acquire practice in
the various artistic techniques, stimulating the formation of a new
figure of multi-specialised craftsman who became frequent among artists
of the modern manner.
Interesting is what Giorgio Vasari writes
in his famous work The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors
and Architects regarding the realization of this work.
«In the
meantime the Venetians wanted to honor the great virtue of Bartolomeo da
Bergamo, through whom they had won many victories, to cheer up the
others, having heard the fame of Andrea, they took him to Venice, where
he was given orders that he make bronze the statue on horseback of that
captain, to be placed in the square of San Giovanni e Paolo. Andrea
therefore, having made the model of the horse, had begun to arm it in
order to cast it in bronze, when, through the favor of some gentlemen,
it was decided that Vellano da Padova should make the figure and Andrea
the horse. Andrea having heard this, having broken the legs and head of
his model, all indignant, he returned without saying a word to Florence.
On hearing this, the Signoria made him understand that he would never
again dare to return to Venice, because his head would be cut off, to
which he replied, writing that he would beware of it, because once they
had taken them off, it was not in their power to seize the heads to men,
nor ever one like his own, as he would have known how to make of the one
he had picked out from his horse, and more beautiful. After which
answer, which did not displease those Signori, he was sent back to
Venice with a double provision, where, having obtained the first model,
he cast it in bronze but did not yet finish it completely, because being
heated and cooled in casting it, it he died in that city in a few days,
leaving imperfect not only that work, even though it was close to being
refinished, which was placed in the place for which it was destined, but
also another one that he executed in Pistoia, namely the burial of
Cardinal Forteguerra, with the three theological virtues and a God the
Father above, which work was then finished by the Florentine sculptor
Lorenzetto.
For the creation of the group Andrea referred to the equestrian
statue of Gattamelata by Donatello, the ancient statues of Marcus
Aurelius, the horses of San Marco and Regisole (late antique work in
Pavia, lost in the eighteenth century), but also kept in mind the fresco
with Giovanni Acuto by Paolo Uccello and the one with Niccolò da
Tolentino by Andrea del Castagno in Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.
The biggest problem with this type of representation was the
statics: in fact, if you wanted to represent the horse at a walk, with
one leg raised to give a sign of majestic gait, this entailed
considerable concern for the works, since the very heavy bronze was tied
to three relatively slender supports represented by the horse's legs.
Donatello in Padua solved the problem with prudence, through the
stratagem of having the raised hoof rest on a sphere. Verrocchio was the
first to succeed successfully in the enterprise of supporting the
monument on only three legs. Subsequently, only Pietro Tacca managed to
do better in 1636-1640, with the Equestrian Monument to Philip IV (Plaza
de Oriente, Madrid), virtuosicly resting on only two legs.
Verrocchio's work differs from Donatello's illustrious predecessor also
for the stylistic values of the work. To the concentrated and serene
gait of Gattamelata, Verrocchio contrasted a leader set according to an
unprecedented dynamic rigor, with a stiff and vigorously rotated bust,
his head firmly pointed towards the enemy, his legs rigidly spread like
compasses, his gestures gritty and vital. The orthogonal lines of force
(horizontal in the upper profile of the horse's back and neck, vertical
in the figure of the leader) amplify the dynamic effect.
Other
differences are found in the armor (lighter and "old-fashioned" that of
Donatello, modern and complete with the helmet that of Verrocchio) and
in the saddle. The Colleoni crest creates a shadow area on the face that
frames it, making the frowning facial expressions more expressive.