Verrocchio, Andrea del (c. 1435-1488)

Florentine sculptor, painter, and goldsmith. He ran a large workshop in Florence and received commissions from the Medici family. His works include the vigorous equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni (begun about 1480; Campo SS Giovanni e Paolo, Venice) and the painting The Baptism of Christ (c. 1470; Uffizi, Florence).

He studied as a goldsmith under Giuliano Verrocchi and was probably also a pupil of Donatello. He is famous principally as a sculptor, his bronze equestrian statue of Colleoni being one of the great masterpieces of Renaissance sculpture. As a painter he is less eminent; the only painting that can be attributed to him with certainty is The Baptism of Christ. However, his studio-workshop, in which painting was only one of many activities, was an important Florentine training ground, and Verrocchio has a secondary reputation as the master of Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, and Lorenzo di Credi. A well-grounded tradition has it that Leonardo painted the angel (on the left) in The Baptism of Christ.