ANNUAL | #7 | SPRING 21 | €15 1 ANDREA DEL WORDS MIGUEL E. BERMUDEZ @MEB3ART Born and lived during the flourishing Rinascimento in Florence in the 1400s, VERROCCHIO the multifarious artist Andrea del Verrocchio, sculptor of atemporal excellence, was not only a witness to the evolving paradigms of the modern world but also a purveyor of the new values through his creations of great humanistic sensitivity. A MAN OF HIS TIME On the hierarchy of art, his works are today placed on the steps of the masters, and his workshop is highly valued for his influence on talents such as Ghirlan- AND FOR ALL THE AGES daio, Botticelli and the ultimate genius of the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci. 182 183 Alexander the Great Andrea del Verrocchio and assistant. Detail, c. 1480-85 Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington opening spread Tobias and the Angel Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, and assistants. Detail, c. 1470 Courtesy of The National Gallery, London round 1468, a young man aged fourteen walked into festivities. It ultimately had leading thinkers placing their a bottega in a small street of Florence accompanied faith in the dignity of the individual and aspiring to find by his father, a notary who had done work for the happiness on this earth through knowledge. Fully a third Adirector and owner of the workshop. That adolescent was of the population of Florence was literate, the highest rate Leonardo da Vinci and the workshop’s owner, Andrea del in Europe; and by embracing trade, it became a center of Verrocchio. This entrance into Verrocchio’s studio bore fruit finance and a cauldron of ideas: There“ was no place then, and far beyond any dreams that either master or apprentice could few places ever, that offered a more stimulating environment have ever imagined. for creativity than Florence in the 1400s. Its economy, once Florence and its streets were full of excitement and energy. dominated by unskilled wool-spinners, had flourished by Trying to imagine an immense building site where all kinds becoming one that, like our own time, interwove art, technology of skills were in demand gives us an idea of the activities and commerce” [2]. surrounding Verrocchio’s workshop. To understand his Education was pivotal in the entirety of Florence. Within contribution, it is important to look first at the circumstances the constraints of the 1400s, an incredible achievement that of art production in Florence during the time of his sustained innovation on all aspects of human activity took apprenticeship and early maturity. place: the all-encompassing approach of the humanistic Florence became effectively one gigantic construction site. emphasis that provided the fertile ground for the existence Among the religious structures being built in the late 1450s of Verrocchio’s workshop and for an apprentice such as and 1460s were San Lorenzo, Santo Spirito, the lantern of Leonardo. “The humanist culture of Medici Florence was the Duomo, the façade of Santa Maria Novella, the Badia holistic in character, embracing all arts, seeking in each Fiesolana, the Pazzi Chapel, and the chapel of James of instance a greater perfection and greater accessibility” [3]. Lusitania, Cardinal of Portugal [1]. Private patrons were Education sustained the advancements in accounting, equally active, constructing new residences of extraordinary instrumental in the success of the banking system of the city. scale and ambition including the palazzi Medici, Pitti, Rucellai, Commerce, the arts, manufacturing, banking, philosophy Pazzi and dozens of others. All these new churches, palaces and all sciences experienced a decisive hour. This was the and villas needed new furnishings, so not only architects fantastic atmosphere that Florence had to offer to Verrocchio and masons but also painters, sculptors and woodworkers and later to his pupil Leonardo. benefited from a constant flow of commissions… For a Andrea di Michele di Francesco de’ Cioni, later known as young artist of talent and determination, it was a time of Andrea del Verrocchio (after assuming the surname of his unprecedented opportunity [1]. master, a goldsmith), was born around 1435 in Florence. His The richness of Florence during the 1400s to the 1500s was acquired name means ‘true eye’, ver’occhio. He trained as a staggering. It had the dominant currency in all of Europe. It goldsmith and by the mid-1460s he had already mastered had the most skilled silk makers and merchants producing painting, marble carving and bronze casting. Verrocchio learnt fabrics that were works of art. It had woodcarvers, painters, all of these skills by stays at different workshops; the demands of goldsmiths and jewelry craftsmen. Banks, business agents, workers in Florence were so great that studios had to perform a a renowned University, bountiful provisions and plenty of variety of works. “It was also a time when collaboration became 184 185 Saint Jerome Andrea del Verrocchio. Detail, c. 1465 Courtesy of Gallerie degli Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, Florence the norm, as artists and patrons raced to build as quickly as achievements with bronze sculptures are intimately related possible and make works of previously unimagined splendor” [1]. to his training as a goldsmith. His works of Christ and Verrocchio was described by Giorgio Vasari in his book Saint Thomas (1467-1483), the equestrian monument to from 1550, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Bartolomeo Colleoni, c. 1480-1496, the tomb of Giovanni and Sculptors, and Architects, as a person of tireless energy Piero de’ Medici, 1470-1473, David with the Head of Goliath, and extraordinary intelligence, with an enormous capacity c. 1465, and Putto with the Dolphin, c. 1465/1480; they all for study and painstaking effort. In one of those works of show the fastidious attention to detail through the elaborate art that we can easily recognize today, the bronze doors on presentation of the curled hairs, vestments, expressions, the Baptistry in Florence, “it is very possible that the figures standing angles and of the mysterious expressions visible of Eve, Cain, and Abel in the lower portion of this frame on the subjects’ eyes that only a true master could achieve. have so many points of correspondence with the autograph Verrocchio wanted to show his superb skills through works of Verrocchio that it is conceivable they are the earliest observation of nature by producing masterpieces that even identifiable sculptures by the artist” [1]. despite made in metal would seem alive. Andrea del Verrocchio first trained as a goldsmith probably Verrocchio’s commission to work on the panels for the with Antonio di Giovanni Dei’s family. This initial training splendid and costly silver altar for the Baptistery of Florence allowed him the possibility of working as a “designer, an brought him great prestige. The Beheading of St. John the engraver, a modeler, a caster of metal, a jeweler, an enameller, Baptist, c. 1477-1480, in view at the Museo dell’Opera del and by logical extension of these talents he had potential as a Duomo, is a triumph in the use of perspective, pose, casting sculptor” [4]. Along the way, Verrocchio acquired competence skills and much more. In this piece, as well as in all the other in sculpture, bronze casting and painting, though this last sculptures that his workshop produced during Leonardo’s skill has been difficult to trace to any particular master. apprenticeship, we can see the lasting influence that the use Eventually, as was the case with apprentices, he established of lucid space for storytelling, succinct architectural design, his own workshop. His bottega, like those of his five or six highly dramatic poses, sharply characterized faces and vivid main competitors in Florence, was more like a commercial expressions had on Leonardo’s works [7]. shop similar to the shops of cobblers and jewelers than a Florence was also a place where ideas, materials, old books, art refined art studio. On the ground floor was a store and from the Roman period, antique cameos, scientific discoveries workroom, open to the street, where artisans and apprentices and contacts with foreign art, artists and merchants coalesced mass-produced products from their easels, workbenches, in one geographical place. The city had semi-precious kilns, pottery wheels and metal grinders. The work was stones arriving from as far afield as Afghanistan, Egypt, collaborative, everyone was expected to help and participate Iran and possibly India. The streets would have been a true in each one of the commissions. It was not an environment microcosm of colors, textures and ideas. This environment designed to discover individuality, unless there was someone also encouraged competition amongst workshops, each one amongst the group that showed superior skills. of them vying to get the most prestigious commissions and Verrocchio’s training as a painter seems to have been less employing the most beautiful and precious materials in order rigorous than those of his other disciplines. His spectacular to gain the admiration of their benefactors. 186 187 David with the Head of Goliath Andrea del Verrocchio, c. 1465 Courtesy of Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence The Beheading of St. John the Baptist for the silver altar of the Baptistry of Florence Andrea del Verrocchio.188 Detail, 1477-80 189 Madonna and Child with Two Angels Andrea del Verrocchio and assistants (Leonardo da Vinci and Pietro Perugino), c. 1470-74 Courtesy of The National Gallery, London Verrocchio wanted to show “ his superb skills through observation of nature by producing masterpieces that would seem alive This was also the moment when science, perhaps for the first drafts, fundamental for the birth of chiaroscuro modeling, an time, tried to explain art. The mathematical perspective as important feature of the art of Leonardo and other sixteenth- researched and written by Leon Battista Alberti in his 1435 century painters [1].