Andrea del Verrocchio
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 July 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0518
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 July 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0518
Introduction
Andrea del Verrocchio was a leading artist in Renaissance Italy. Best known today as the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci, Verrocchio was a celebrated artist in his own right. Born in Florence c. 1435 to a family of artisans and laborers, Verrocchio spent most of his career in that city. He died in Venice in 1488, two years after he had moved there to make a bronze equestrian monument of the mercenary general Bartolommeo Colleoni. Verrocchio worked in an unusually wide variety of media. In sculpture he produced works in marble, wood, bronze, terracotta, and wax. He was also a draftsman, painter, and goldsmith. Most studies on the artist tend to focus on his art in sculpture and few consider his work in different media in dialogue. Yet the artist frequently used the tools and techniques from one medium in another. A closer look at Verrocchio’s tendency to work between and across media reveals an artist who is among the most experimental in 15th-century Florence, itself a major European center of artistic innovation. Verrocchio influenced many of the leading artists of the next generation, especially painters, some of whom trained with him. These included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, and Domenico Ghirlandaio, among many others. Verrocchio initiated many formal, stylistic, and technical innovations that were taken up by artists of the next generation and in succeeding centuries. His Christ and Saint Thomas shows the figures in dynamic and carefully choreographed poses. Thomas is positioned on a step outside the niche in which Christ is placed and turns to reach forward as if to touch Christ’s wound but does not. The careful placement of the figures in relation to each other and to the niche around them anticipates formal developments taken up by Baroque artists, such as Gianlorenzo Bernini. Verrocchio’s Putto with a Dolphin has an equally dynamic pose, with the putto positioned so that it spirals around a central axis, its twisting body inviting the viewer to move around it. This pose came to be known as figura serpentinata (literally “serpentine figure”), a compositional device of enormous influence adopted by leading artists of the sixteenth century, including the painter Leonardo and the sculptor Giambologna. Verrocchio recognized the tonal potential for drawing in black chalk and used it to create areas of sfumato (areas of smokiness) in his drawings, a technical innovation commonly attributed to his pupil Leonardo.
General Overviews
Butterfield 1997 and Covi 2005 provide the most useful and up-to-date studies on Verrocchio, along with the exhibition catalogues Butterfield 2019 and Caglioti and De Marchi 2019 (both cited under Major Exhibition Catalogues), although Adorno 1991, Cannon-Brookes 1974, Cruttwell 1904, Passavant 1969, and Seymour 1971 all make important contributions. Covi is particularly useful in providing transcriptions of almost all documentation relating to the artist. Neilson 2019 takes a different approach, offering an exploration of Verrocchio’s art across and between different media.
Adorno, Piero. Il Verrocchio: Nuove proposte nella civilità artistica del tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico. Florence: Casa Editrice Edam, 1991.
Examines Verrocchio’s work as a sculptor, painter, and goldsmith, focusing especially on the political and cultural context in which his works were created.
Butterfield, Andrew. The Sculptures of Andrea del Verrocchio. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
Overview of Verrocchio’s sculpture, organized chronologically, with cogent and convincing analyses of objects and documents. Emphasizes Verrocchio’s knowledge of Classical sources and his interest in psychology, preempting Leonardo’s work in this area. A brief discussion of Verrocchio’s activity as a painter, draftsman, and teacher is included at the end.
Cannon-Brookes, Peter. “Verrocchio Problems.” Apollo 99 (1974): 8–19.
Analyzes material evidence of important sculptures by Verrocchio to hypothesize about how they were made and their implications for the artist’s training, as well as discussing issues of attribution and dating. Although this is an article rather than a monograph, it provides an overview of many important issues relating to Verrocchio.
Covi, Dario A. Andrea del Verrocchio: Life and Work. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2005.
Important recent monograph on Verrocchio’s work in all media (sculptures, paintings, drawings), focusing especially on issues of attribution and dating. Includes an appendix with transcriptions of most documents from Verrocchio’s lifetime (or shortly afterward) concerning the artist.
Cruttwell, Maud. Verrocchio. London: Duckworth, 1904.
Aims to establish Verrocchio’s importance as an artist. The first important monograph on Verrocchio in English. Chiefly concerned with issues of attribution, mainly of sculptures but also of paintings and drawings.
Neilson, Christina. Practice and Theory in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Verrocchio and the Epistemology of Making Art. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Argues that although Verrocchio left no writings about his art, it is possible to formulate a theory of his art by analyzing his techniques of making. This book is not a monograph, but the arguments presented through a series of case studies has broader ramifications for understanding Verrocchio beyond the works discussed: that Verrocchio thought between and across media (sculpture, painting, and drawing), and expressed ideas through materials and techniques.
Passavant, Günter. Verrocchio: Sculptures, Paintings, and Drawings. Translated by Katherine Watson. London: Phaidon, 1969.
Monographic study of the artist. Interested chiefly in attribution and establishing the sequence of Verrocchio’s stylistic development. Summarizes in English arguments about Verrocchio as a painter from Passavant 1959 (cited under Verrocchio’s Painting Oeuvre), proposing that Verrocchio began painting in the 1460s and that his work as a painter was concerned with issues carried over from his work in sculpture, namely volume and spatial relationships.
Seymour, Charles, Jr. The Sculpture of Verrocchio. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1971.
Provides insightful interpretations of the artist’s major sculptural works and addresses issues of attribution. Also useful for the translation into English of the list of works Verrocchio made for the Medici, inventoried by his brother, Tommaso, after the artist’s death (for a transcription in Italian, see Covi 2005).
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Academies
- Aemilia Lanyer
- Agrippa d’Aubigné
- Alberti, Leon Battista
- Alexander VI, Pope
- Amsterdam
- Andrea del Verrocchio
- Andrea Mantegna
- Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt
- Anne Boleyn
- Anne Bradstreet
- Antwerp
- Aretino, Pietro
- Ariosto, Ludovico
- Art and Science
- Art, German
- Art in Renaissance England
- Art in Renaissance Florence
- Art in Renaissance Siena
- Art in Renaissance Venice
- Art Literature and Theory of Art
- Art Market
- Art of Poetry
- Art, Spanish
- Art, 16th- and 17th-Century Flemish
- Art, 17th-Century Dutch
- Artemisia Gentileschi
- Artisans
- Ascham, Roger
- Askew, Anne
- Astell, Mary
- Astrology, Alchemy, Magic
- Augsburg
- Austria
- Avignon Papacy
- Bacon, Francis
- Banking and Money
- Barbaro, Ermolao, the Younger
- Barbaro, Francesco
- Baron, Hans
- Baroque
- Baroque Art and Architecture in Italy
- Barzizza, Gasparino
- Bathsua Makin
- Beaufort, Margaret
- Bellarmine, Cardinal
- Bembo, Pietro
- Benito Arias Montano
- Bernardino of Siena, San
- Beroaldo, Filippo, the Elder
- Bessarion, Cardinal
- Bible, The
- Biondo, Flavio
- Bishops, 1550–1700
- Bishops, 1400-1550
- Black Death and Plague: The Disease and Medical Thought
- Boccaccio, Giovanni
- Bohemia and Bohemian Crown Lands
- Borgia, Cesare
- Borgia, Lucrezia
- Borromeo, Cardinal Carlo
- Bosch, Hieronymous
- Bracciolini, Poggio
- Brahe, Tycho
- Bruegel, Pieter the Elder
- Bruni, Leonardo
- Bruno, Giordano
- Bucer, Martin
- Buonarroti, Michelangelo
- Burgundy and the Netherlands
- Calvin, John
- Calvinism
- Camões, Luís de
- Caravaggio
- Cardano, Girolamo
- Cardinal Richelieu
- Cardinals
- Carvajal y Mendoza, Luisa De
- Cary, Elizabeth
- Casas, Bartolome de las
- Castiglione, Baldassarre
- Catherine of Siena
- Catholic/Counter-Reformation
- Catholicism, Early Modern
- Cecilia del Nacimiento
- Cellini, Benvenuto
- Cervantes, Miguel de
- Charles V, Emperor
- China and Europe, 1550-1800
- Christian-Muslim Exchange
- Church Fathers in Renaissance and Reformation Thought, The
- Ciceronianism
- Cities and Urban Patriciates
- Civic Humanism
- Civic Ritual
- Classical Tradition, The
- Clifford, Anne
- Colet, John
- Colonna, Vittoria
- Columbus, Christopher
- Comenius, Jan Amos
- Commedia dell'arte
- Concepts of the Renaissance, c. 1780–c. 1920
- Confraternities
- Constantinople, Fall of
- Contarini, Gasparo, Cardinal
- Convent Culture
- Conversion
- Conversos and Crypto-Judaism
- Copernicus, Nicolaus
- Cornaro, Caterina
- Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici
- Costume
- Council of Trent
- Crime and Punishment
- Croatia
- Cromwell, Oliver
- Cruz, Juana de la, Mother
- Cruz, Juana Inés de la, Sor
- Dance
- d'Aragona, Tullia
- Datini, Margherita
- Davies, Eleanor
- de Commynes, Philippe
- de Sales, Saint Francis
- de Valdés, Juan
- Death and Dying
- Decembrio, Pier Candido
- Dentière, Marie
- Des Roches, Madeleine and Catherine
- d’Este, Isabella
- di Toledo, Eleonora
- Dialogue
- Diplomacy
- Dolce, Ludovico
- Donatello
- Donne, John
- Drama, English Renaissance
- Dürer, Albrecht
- du Bellay, Joachim
- Du Guillet, Pernette
- Dutch Overseas Empire
- Ebreo, Leone
- Edinburgh
- Edmund Campion
- Edward IV, King of England
- El Greco
- Elizabeth I, the Great, Queen of England
- Emperor, Maximilian I
- England, 1485-1642
- English Overseas Empire
- English Puritans, Quakers, Dissenters, and Recusants
- Environment and the Natural World
- Epic and Romance
- Erasmus
- Europe and the Globe, 1350–1700
- European Tapestries
- Family and Childhood
- Fedele, Cassandra
- Federico Barocci
- Female Lay Piety
- Ferrara and the Este
- Ficino, Marsilio
- Filelfo, Francesco
- Florence
- Fonte, Moderata
- Foscari, Francesco
- France in the 17th Century
- France in the 16th Century
- Francis Xavier, St
- Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros
- French Law and Justice
- French Renaissance Drama
- Fugger Family
- Galilei, Galileo
- Gallicanism
- Gambara, Veronica
- Garin, Eugenio
- General Church Councils, Pre-Trent
- Geneva (1400-1600)
- George Buchanan
- George of Trebizond
- Georges de La Tour
- Ghetto
- Giambologna
- Ginés de Sepúlveda, Juan
- Giustiniani, Bernardo
- Góngora, Luis de
- Gournay, Marie de
- Greek Visitors
- Guarino da Verona
- Guicciardini, Francesco
- Guilds and Manufacturing
- Hamburg, 1350–1815
- Hanseatic League
- Henry VII
- Henry VIII, King of England
- Herbert, George
- Hispanic Mysticism
- Historiography
- Hobbes, Thomas
- Holy Roman Empire 1300–1650
- Homes, Foundling
- Huguenots
- Humanism
- Humanism, The Origins of
- Hundred Years War, The
- Hungary, The Kingdom of
- Hus, Jan
- Hutchinson, Lucy
- Iconology and Iconography
- Ignatius of Loyola, Saint
- Inquisition, Roman
- Ireland
- Isaac Casaubon
- Isabel I, Queen of Castile
- Italian Wars, 1494–1559
- Ivan IV the Terrible, Tsar of Russia
- Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples
- Jansenism
- Japan and Europe: the Christian Century, 1549-1650
- Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre
- Jesuits
- Jews
- Jews and Christians in Venice
- Jews and the Reformation
- Jews in Florence
- Joan of Arc
- Jonson, Ben
- Joseph Justus Scaliger
- Juan de Torquemada
- Julius II
- Kepler, Johannes
- King of France, Francis I
- King of France, Henri IV
- Knox, John
- Kristeller, Paul Oskar
- Labé, Louise
- Landino, Cristoforo
- Landscape
- Last Wills and Testaments
- Laura Cereta
- Law
- Lay Piety
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
- Leo X
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Leoni, Leone and Pompeo
- Leto, Giulio Pomponio
- Letter Writing and Epistolary Culture
- Libraries
- Literary Criticism
- Literature, French
- Literature, Italian
- Literature, Late Medieval German
- Literature, Penitential
- Literature, Spanish
- Locke, John
- London
- Lorenzo de' Medici
- Lorenzo Ghiberti
- Louis XI, King of France
- Louis XIII, King of France
- Louis XIV, King of France
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
- Lucretius in Renaissance Thought
- Luther, Martin
- Lyric Poetry
- Machiavelli, Niccolo
- Macinghi Strozzi, Alessandra
- Malatesta, Sigismondo
- Manetti, Giannozzo
- Mannerism
- Mantovano (Battista Spagnoli), Battista
- Manuel Chrysoloras
- Manuzio, Aldo
- Margaret Clitherow
- Margaret Fell Fox
- Margery Kempe
- Marinella, Lucrezia
- Marino Sanudo
- Marlowe, Christopher
- Marriage and Dowry
- Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots)
- Mary Tudor, Queen of England
- Masculinity
- Medici Bank
- Medici, Catherine de'
- Medici Family, The
- Medicine
- Mediterranean
- Memling, Hans
- Merici, Angela
- Midwifery
- Milan, 1535–1706
- Milan to 1535
- Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della
- Mission
- Monarchy in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Female
- Montaigne, Michel de
- More, Thomas
- Morone, Cardinal Giovanni
- Music
- Naples, 1300–1700
- Navarre, Marguerite de
- Netherlandish Art, Early
- Netherlands (Dutch Revolt/ Dutch Republic), The
- Netherlands, Spanish, 1598-1700, the
- Nettesheim, Agrippa von
- Newton, Isaac
- Niccoli, Niccolò
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Nicolas Malebranche
- Nobility
- Opera
- Ottoman Empire
- Ovid in Renaissance Thought
- Panofsky, Erwin
- Paolo Veronese
- Papacy
- Papal Rome
- Paracelsus
- Paris
- Parr, Katherine
- Patronage of the Arts
- Perotti, Niccolò
- Persecution and Martyrdom
- Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia
- Petrarch
- Petrus Ramus and Ramism
- Philip Melanchthon
- Philips, Katherine
- Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius
- Piero della Francesca
- Pierre Bayle
- Pilgrimage in Early Modern Catholicism
- Plague and its Consequences
- Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Hermetic Tradition
- Poetry, English
- Pole, Cardinal Reginald
- Polish Literature: Baroque
- Polish Literature: Renaissance
- Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, The
- Political Thought
- Poliziano, Angelo
- Polydore Vergil
- Pontano, Giovanni Giovano
- Pope Innocent VIII
- Pope Nicholas V
- Pope Paul II
- Portraiture
- Portugal
- Poulain de la Barre, Francois
- Poverty and Poor Relief
- Prince Henry the Navigator
- Printing and the Book
- Printmaking
- Prophecy
- Purgatory
- Purity of Blood
- Quirini, Lauro
- Rabelais, François
- Raphael
- Reformation and Hussite Revolution, Czech
- Reformation and Wars of Religion in France, The
- Reformation, English
- Reformation, German
- Reformation, Italian, The
- Reformation, The
- Reformations and Revolt in the Netherlands, 1500–1621
- Rembrandt
- Renaissance, The
- Reuchlin, Johann
- Revolutionary England, 1642-1702
- Rhetoric
- Ricci, Matteo
- Richard III
- Rienzo, Cola Di
- Roman and Iberian Inquisitions, Censorship and the Index i...
- Ronsard, Pierre de
- Roper, Margeret More
- Royal Regencies in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, 140...
- Rubens, Peter Paul
- Russell, Elizabeth Cooke Hoby
- Russia and Muscovy
- Ruzante Angelo Beolco
- Saint John of the Cross
- Saints and Mystics: After Trent
- Saints and Mystics: Before Trent
- Salutati, Coluccio
- Sandro Botticelli
- Sarpi, Fra Paolo
- Savonarola, Girolamo
- Scandinavia
- Scholasticism and Aristotelianism: Fourteenth to Seventeen...
- Schooling and Literacy
- Scientific Revolution
- Scotland
- Scève, Maurice
- Sephardic Diaspora
- Sforza, Caterina
- Sforza, Francesco
- Shakespeare, William
- Sidney Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke
- Sidney, Philip
- Simon of Trent
- Sir Robert Cecil
- Sixtus IV, Pope
- Skepticism in Renaissance Thought
- Slavery and the Slave Trade, 1350–1650
- Southern Italy, 1500–1700
- Southern Italy, 1300–1500
- Spain
- Spanish Inquisition
- Spanish Islam, 1350-1614
- Spenser, Edmund
- Sperone Speroni
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Stampa, Gaspara
- Stuart, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia
- Switzerland
- Tarabotti, Arcangela
- Tasso Torquato
- Tell, William
- Teresa of Avila
- Textiles: 1400 to 1700
- The Casa of San Giorgio, Genoa
- The Radical Reformation
- The Sack of Rome (1527)
- Thirty Years War, The
- Thomas Wyatt
- Titian
- Toleration
- Tornabuoni, Lucrezia
- Trade Networks
- Tragedy, English
- Translation
- Transylvania, The Principality of
- Traversari, Ambrogio
- Universities
- Urbanism
- Ursulines
- Valeriano, Pierio
- Valla, Lorenzo
- van Eyck, Jan
- van Schurman, Anna Maria
- Vasari, Giorgio
- Vega, Lope de
- Vegio, Maffeo
- Velázquez
- Venice
- Venice, Maritime
- Vergerio, Pier Paolo, The Elder
- Vermeer, Johannes
- Vernacular Languages and Dialects
- Vida, Marco Girolamo
- Virgil in Renaissance Thought
- Visitors, Italian
- Vives, Juan Luis
- Walter Ralegh
- War and Economy, 1300-1600
- Ward, Mary
- Warfare and Military Organizations
- Weyden, Rogier van der
- Widowhood
- Witch Hunt
- Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal
- Women and Learning
- Women and Medicine
- Women and Science
- Women and the Book Trade
- Women and the Reformation
- Women and the Visual Arts
- Women and Warfare
- Women and Work: Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries
- Women Writers in Ireland
- Women Writers of the Iberian Empire
- Women Writing in Early Modern Spain
- Women Writing in English
- Women Writing in French
- Women Writing in Italy
- Wroth, Mary