In Duke Cosimo’s wardrobe there are two very beautiful female heads in profile by Botticelli, one of which is said to be the mistress of Lorenzo’s brother, Giuliano de’ Medici, and the other, Madonna Lucrezia de’ Tornabuoni, Lorenzo’s wife. In the same place there is a Bacchus of Sandro’s, a very graceful figure shown raising a cask with both hands and putting it to its lips. In the Duomo at Pisa, in the chapel of the Impagliata, he started an Assumption with a choir of angels, but it displeased him and he left it unfinished. In San Francesco at Montevarchi he did the panel for the high altar, and he also did two angels for the parish church at Empoli, on the same side as Rossellino’s St Sebastian.
Botticelli was one of the first to find out how to make standards and other draperies by plaiting the material so that the colours show on both sides without running. That was how he made the baldachin of Orsanmichele, full of Madonnas, all different and all beautiful. It is clear that this method of treating the cloth preserves the work better than the use of acids, which eat the material away, even though because of its relative cheapness the latter is nowadays the more usual technique.
Sandro was an uncommonly good and, in consequence, for some time after his death artists used to search out his drawings, and I have some of them in my book which show great skill and judgement. In the scenes he did he made a lavish use of figures, as can be seen in the decorative work he designed for the frieze of the processional cross of the friars of Santa Maria Novella.
Altogether, Sandra Botticelli’s pictures merited the highest praise; he threw himself into his work with diligence and enthusiasm, as can be seen in the Adoration of the Magi in Santa Maria Novella, which I described earlier and which is a marvellous painting. Also very fine is the small circular picture by Sandro that can be seen in the prior’s room in the Angeli at Florence, the figures being tiny but very graceful and beautifully composed. A Florentine gentleman, Fabio Segni, has in his possession a painting of the same size as the panel picture of the Magi; the subject is Apelles’ Calumny. He himself gave this unimaginably beautiful painting to his close friend, Antonio Segni, and underneath it can be read these lines by Fabio:
ludicio quemquam ne falso laedere tentent
Terrarum reges, parva tabella monet.
Huic similem Aegypti regi donavit Apelles;
Rex fuit et dignus munere, munus eo.1
LIFE OF ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO
Florentine painter, sculptor, and architect, c. 1435–88
ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO of Florence was at once a goldsmith, a master of perspective, a sculptor, a woodcarver, a painter, and a musician. It must be admitted that the style of his sculpture and painting tended to be hard and crude, since it was the product of unremitting study rather than of any natural gift or facility. But because of his intense studies and diligence even if he had completely lacked any natural facility Andrea would have excelled in those arts. To produce perfect work, painters and sculptors need both application and natural talent: unless both these are present, the artist very rarely reaches the first rank. All the same, application is the more important of the two, and as Andrea possessed it in abundance, more than any other craftsman, he is counted among our finest and most outstanding artists.
When he was young Andrea studied the sciences, and especially geometry. Among the many other things he made while he was working as a goldsmith were some morses which are to be found in Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence; and he also made some larger works, notably a cup, decorated with great numbers of animals and garlands and with other imaginative details, the mould of which still exists and is used by all the goldsmiths. On another cup that he made there is a very beautiful group of dancing children. After he had provided these examples of what he could do, the Merchants Guild commissioned from him two silver reliefs for the ends of the altar of San Giovanni which when they were finished won him great praise and fame.
Now at that time there was a need to replace some of the large statues of the apostles belonging to the altar of the Pope’s Chapel in Rome, as well as several other works in silver that had been destroyed. So Pope Sixtus sent for Andrea and did him the honour of commissioning from him all that was wanted; and Andrea did the work perfectly, with wonderful care and judgement. While he was in Rome, Andrea saw the very high value that was put on the many statues and other antiques being discovered there and the way the Pope had the bronze horse set up in St John Lateran, as well as the attention given to even the bits and pieces, let alone the complete works of sculpture, that were being unearthed every day.1 So he made up his mind to devote himself to sculpture and abandon his work as a goldsmith. He first cast some small figures in bronze and was then encouraged by the praise they received to do some work in marble. Just at that time, the wife of Franceso Tornabuoni died in childbirth and her husband, who had loved her dearly and wanted to honour her memory as best he could, asked Andrea to make her monument. He carved her effigy in stone on a marble sarcophagus, representing her confinement and her departure to another life and showing the three Virtues, which were regarded as very fine since this was his first work in marble. The tomb was afterwards placed in the Minerva.
Andrea then returned with money, fame, and honour to Florence, where he was commissioned to make a bronze statue of David, five feet in height, which after it was finished was placed, much to his credit, at the head of the staircase in the Palazzo della Signoria, where the chain used to be. While he was working on this he also made that marble statue of Our Lady which is over the tomb of Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, in Santa Croce. He did this while he was still a young man for the architect and sculptor Bernardo Rossellino, who, as I said elsewhere, carried out the entire work in marble. Andrea also made a half-length Madonna and Child in half relief on a marble panel which used to be in the house of the Medici and is now kept, as a work of great beauty, over one of the doors in the apartment of the duchess of Florence. He also did two separate bronze heads in half relief, one of Alexander the Great in profile, the other a fanciful portrait of Darius, with contrasted crests, armour, and so forth. Both these heads along with various other works were sent by Lorenzo the Magnificent to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.
These works (and especially the bronze sculpture which he loved doing) greatly enhanced Andrea’s reputation, and then for Giovanni and Piero de’ Medici he made a bronze tomb in San Lorenzo, completely in the round, with a porphyry sarcophagus supported by four bronze corner-pieces with twisting foliage, finely wrought and finished with wonderful care. This tomb stands between the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and the sacristy, and it would be impossible for anyone to make a better bronze cast, especially as Andrea also displayed his talent as an architect by placing the tomb within the embrasure of a window about ten feet wide and twenty feet in height and setting it on a base that divides the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament from the old sacristy. Over the sarcophagus, closing the embrasure up to the vaulting, he constructed a network of bronze ropes in the form of mandorle, all very natural looking, and adorned here and there with festoons and other remarkable and imaginative ornaments, devised with great skill, judgement and invention. Meanwhile Donatello had made for the Tribunal of Six of the Mercanzia the marble shrine which is now opposite the St Michael in the oratory of Orsanmichele; but nothing was done about the bronze statue of St Thomas feeling for the wound in the side of Christ because some of the men responsible wanted the work to go to Donatello whereas others wanted Lorenzo Ghiberti to do it. Matters stayed like this as long as Donatello and Lorenzo were alive, but eventually Andrea was asked to make the two statues. So he made models and moulds and cast them very successfully, producing figures that were solid, complete, and beautifully fashioned. Then he polished and finished them, bringing them to the incomparable perfection we can see today. In the figure of St Thomas the artist has expressed incredulity and impatience to know the truth, along with the love that compels the saint to place his hand, with beautiful effect, in the side of Christ; and in Christ himself, who wit
h a gesture of wonderful spontaneity is raising one arm and opening his garment to dispel the doubts of his incredulous disciple, there is seen, so to say, all the grace and divinity that art can convey. The drapery of these statues, so beautiful and well-arranged, convinces one that Andrea understood the craft as much as Donatello, Lorenzo, and the others who had lived before him. This work was certainly worthy of being set up in a shrine made by Donatello and of the honour and praise that have always been accorded it.
By now Andrea had such a fine reputation as a sculptor that there was nothing left for him to achieve; and as he was a man who could never be content with excelling in only one of the arts but wanted to win distinction in others, he began to study painting. He made some excellent cartoons for a scene of nude figures in combat to be painted on a wall. Then he did the cartoons for some pictures which he started to paint himself; but for whatever reason they were not finished. In my book I have some of his drawings, made with the greatest patience and judgement, among which are several female heads with lovely expressions and hair which Leonardo da Vinci was always imitating for their beauty. I also have two drawings of horses, with the measures and protractors for reproducing them in the right proportions on a larger scale, as well as a very precious horse’s head in terracotta copied from the antique. The Very Reverend Don Vincenzo Borghini has some other drawings on paper in his book which I mentioned earlier. Among these is the design for a tomb which Andrea did for one of the doges in Venice, a picture of the Magi adoring Christ, and an extremely charming female head, painted on paper.
For the fountain of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s villa at Careggi Andrea made the bronze figure of a boy hugging a fish which, as we can see today, the Lord Duke Cosimo has had erected on the fountain in the courtyard of his palace and which is truly a marvellous piece of work.
Now after the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore had been finished it was resolved, following a great deal of discussion, that work should start on the copper ball which, according to the instructions left by Filippo Brunelleschi, was to be placed on the summit. Andrea was given the commission, and he made the ball eight feet high, balancing it securely on a boss, so that it could safely support the cross. When everything was ready the ball was put in place, to the great joy and satisfaction of the people. The work required a great deal of care and ingenuity, so that it would be possible, as it is, to enter the ball from below and to make it proof against any damage from the wind.
Andrea never gave himself a moment’s rest from painting or sculpture, very often leaving one kind of work for the other to avoid growing weary, as so many do, of always working at the same thing. Although he never used the cartoons I mentioned, he did paint several pictures, including a panel picture for the nuns of San Domenico of Florence, with which he was more than pleased. So shortly afterwards he did another panel picture, this time in San Salvi for the monks of Vallombrosa, showing the Baptism of Christ by St John. In this work he was assisted by the young Leonardo da Vinci, who was then his pupil. The angel which Leonardo painted was so superior to the rest of the work that Andrea resolved he would never take up a brush again, seeing that the young Leonardo had shown himself to be a far better craftsman.
On one occasion Cosimo de’ Medici, having received a number of antiquities from Rome, set up inside the door of his garden, or rather courtyard, which opens on the Via de’ Ginori, a very beautiful Marsyas of white marble, bound to a tree and ready to be flayed. His grandson Lorenzo had come into possession of the head and torso of another very ancient statue of Marsyas, in red stone, which was far more beautiful than the first, and he wanted to place the two together; but he could not do so as the second figure was so imperfect. So he gave the statue to Andrea to be restored and completed; and Andrea made the missing legs, thighs, and arms out of pieces of red marble so skilfully that Lorenzo was more than satisfied and was able to place it opposite the other, on the other side of the door. This antique torso, showing the flayed body of Marsyas, was made with such care and judgement that some slender white veins in the red stone were brought out, by skilful carving, in exactly the right places, appearing like the tiny sinews that are revealed when a human body is flayed. When it had its original finish, this work must have been absolutely true to life.
Meanwhile, the Venetians resolved to do honour to the prowess of Bartolommeo da Bergamo, who had won many victories for them, in order to encourage others to emulate him; and having heard of Andrea’s fame they persuaded him to visit Venice, where he was given instructions to make a bronze equestrian statue of that captain for the piazza di SS. Giovanni e Paolo. Andrea made the model for the horse and had started to construct the armature to cast it in bronze when, thanks to the influence of certain gentlemen, it was decided that Vallano da Padova should make the figure and Andrea the horse. When he heard this Andrea smashed the legs and head of his model and returned in a rage to Florence without saying a word. And when the Signoria heard what had happened they gave him to understand that he had better not return to Venice or they would cut his head off. To this Andrea wrote in reply that he would take good care not to, seeing that once they had cut it off they had no way of putting a man’s head back again, certainly not one like this; whereas he would have been able to replace the head of the horse, and with something more beautiful at that. After they received this answer (which did not displease them) they brought him back to Venice and doubled his salary. Andrea then restored the first model and cast it in bronze, without, however, finishing it completely, for when he was casting it he caught a chill and died within a few days, while still in Venice. He left unfinished not only the bronze horse (which was nearly ready, however, and was set up in its appointed place) but also another work which he was doing in Pistoia, namely, the tomb of Cardinal Forteguerri, with the three theological virtues and God-the-Father, which was subsequently finished by the Florentine sculptor, Lorenzo Lotti.
Andrea was fifty-six when his death plunged into grief his many friends and pupils, and especially Nanni Grosso the sculptor, a very eccentric person both as a man and an artist. It is said that Grosso would never accept a commission if it meant leaving his workshop, especially if it were for the monks or friars, unless he were given free access to their vaults or cellar, so that he could go and drink whenever he wanted without asking permission. According to another’ story, he recovered his health after he had been suffering from some illness or other at Santa Maria Novella only to tell his friends, when they visited him and asked how he was, that he was very poorly.
‘But you’ve been cured,’ they protested.
To which he retorted: ‘That’s just why I have to be poorly, because I need a touch of fever to stay in hospital nice and comfortable.’
Then when he came to die in the hospital they brought him a badly made crucifix, but he begged them to take the ugly thing away and instead bring him one made by Donatello, insisting that if they didn’t do so he would the in despair, he so detested the sight of bad works of art.
Other pupils of Andrea were Piero Perugino, Leonardo da Vinci (who will be discussed later) and Francesco di Simone of Florence, who made for the church of San Domenico in Bologna a marble tomb with numerous little figures, which from their style might be by Andrea. This tomb was made for Alessandro Tartagni, a doctor of law of Imola, and Francesco did another like it between the sacristy and one of the chapels of San Pancrazio in Florence for a knight called Pier Miner-betti.
Agnolo di Polo was also trained by Andrea. He was a skilful worker in clay who filled the city with his productions and would have done some very fine work if he had attended to sculpture seriously.
But most of all Andrea loved Lorenzo di Credi. It was Lorenzo who brought his remains from Venice and laid them in Sant’Ambrogio, in the tomb of Michele di Cione over whose monument are carved these words:
Ser Michaelis de Cionis et suorum;
and then:
Hic ossa jacent Andreae Verrocchii qui obiit
Venetiis MCCCCLXXXVIII.1
Andrea was very fond of making plaster casts, for which he used a soft stone quarried in the districts of Volterra and Siena and in many other parts of Italy. When this stone is baked in the fire, and then crushed and made into a paste with tepid water, it becomes so soft that it can be fashioned into whatever shape is wanted, and then when it has dried out it sets so hard that whole figures can be cast from it. In the moulds he made from this stone Andrea used to cast various natural forms, such as knees, legs, arms, and torsos, which he kept by him for copying purposes. Then, during Andrea’s lifetime, the custom started of doing inexpensive casts of the heads of those who died; and so one can see in every house in Florence, over the chimney-pieces, doors, windows, and cornices, endless examples of such portraits, so well made and natural that they seem alive. This practice has been continued until the present day and has proved extremely useful in making available to us the portraits of many of those who appear in the scenes painted in Duke Cosimo’s palace. For this we are greatly indebted to the talents of Andrea, who was one of the first to use such casts.
From Andrea also came the technique of making far more perfect images not only in Florence but also in every centre of devotion where the faithful come in thanksgiving with their votive offerings or ‘miracle pictures’ as they are called. Formerly these were small and made in silver, or on small painted panels or crudely fashioned in wax; then in Andrea’s time a far better style was introduced. What happened was that Andrea was very friendly in Florence with a skilful craftsman in waxwork called Orsino, who started to teach him how to attain perfection in that craft. Then when Giuliano de’ Medici was killed and his brother Lorenzo wounded in Santa Maria del Fiore, Lorenzo’s friends and relations ordered that, in thanksgiving to God for his preservation, images of him should be set up throughout the city. So for his part Orsino, with the help and advice of Andrea, made three life-size figures in wax with a wooden framework (as I describe elsewhere) completed with split canes and a covering of waxed cloth, folded and arranged so well that the result was wonderfully attractive and lifelike. He then made the heads, hands, and feet, using a coating of thicker wax, copying the features from life, and painting them in oils with the hair and other adornments. The results of this skilful work were so natural that the wax figures seemed real and alive, as can be seen today from the three figures themselves. One of them is in the church of the nuns of Chiarito, in Via di San Gallo, in front of the miraculous crucifix. This statue is dressed exactly as Lorenzo was when, bandaged and wounded at the throat, he stood at the windows of his house and showed himself to the people who had come to see whether, as they hoped, he was alive or whether they would have to avenge his death.
Lives of the Artists Page 25