Verrocchio, Andrea del

Verrocchio, Andrea del, real name Andrea di Michele di Francesco di Cioni (1435-1488), Florentine sculptor and painter, who is ranked second only to Donatello among the Italian sculptors of the early Renaissance. He was born in Florence and, according to tradition, was trained in that city as a goldsmith, with Giuliano Verrocchio, whose name he supposedly adopted as his own; as a sculptor, with Donatello; and as a painter, with Alesso Baldovinetti. Later Verrocchio conducted a large academy in Florence that became the principal centre of the arts. Among his pupils were Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and Perugino.

Verrocchio's bronze equestrian statue of the Venetian condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, which stands in the Campo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, is notable for the impression it creates of nobility and power and for the consummate skill in which anatomical and technical problems are overcome. Verrocchio completed only the clay model for this work, which was cast after his death by the Venetian sculptor Alessandro Leopardi. Other major bronze sculptures include David (1470-1472, Museo Nazionale, Florence) and Boy with a Dolphin (c. 1476, for a fountain in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence).

Most of the paintings once attributed to Verrocchio were probably executed by his pupils after his designs. The few paintings in which his personal style can be identified are distinguished by firm drawing and modelling and enamel-like colour. His landscapes particularly reveal him as a pioneer in the rendition of atmospheric perspective. Among his principal paintings are Baptism of Christ (1470, Uffizi, Florence) and several versions of the Madonna and Child (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Recent studies of the Baptism of Christ have confirmed that one of the angels and part of the background are the work of Leonardo.