Giorgio Vasari

“ Andrea, therefore, adopted the practice of casting in moulds thus prepared, such natural objects as he desired to have continually before his eyes, for the better and more convenient imitation of them in his works—hands, feet, the knee, the arm, the torso, &c. Artists afterwards—but in his time—began to make casts of the heads of those who died, a thing they could by this means do at but little cost ”

“ Among others, there is the design for a sepulchral monument, erected by Andrea, in Venice, for a doge of that republic, with an Adoration of the Magi and a female head, all depicted on paper with the most finished delicacy.
Andrea Verrocchio executed the figure in bronze of a boy strangling a fish, [18] on the fountain of the villa at Careggi, for Lorenzo de’ Medici. This the Signor Duke Cosimo has now caused to be placed, as we see, on the fountain in the court of his palace; the boy is a truly admirable figure. ”

“ The Florentine, Andrea del Verrocchio, was at once a goldsmith, a master in persjiective, a sculptor, a carver in wood, a painter, and a musician; but it is true that he had a somewhat hard and crude manner in sculpture and painting, as one who had acquired those arts by infinite labour and study, rather than from a gift of nature. Had he possessed the facility arising from natural powers to an equal degree with the diligence and industry wherewith he was gifted, and which he bestowed on the arts he exercised^ Andrea Verrocchio would have been among the most excellent of masters. ”

“ Another disciple of Andrea Yerrocchio was Agnolo di Polo, who worked in terra-cotta with great skill. The city is full of figures by his hand, and if he had devoted himself zealously to the study of his art he would have produced admirable works. But more than all his other disciples was Lorenzo di Credi [32] beloved by his master, whose remains were by him conveyed from Venice, and deposited in the church of Sant’ Ambrogio, in the sepulchre of Ser Michele di Cione, where the following words are engraved above the tombstone. ”

“ When this artist was at the point of death, which happened in the hospital aforesaid, they placed a wooden crucifix before him, which was clumsy and ill executed, when he implored them to take it out of his sight and bring him one by Donato, declaring, that if they did not take that one from before him, he should die despairing, so greatly did the sight of ill-executed works in his own art displease him. ”

“ Andrea Verrocchio never gave himself rest; he was perpetually occupied either with painting or sculpture, and sometimes changed from one to the other, to the end that he might not weary himself by too long a continuance at one thing, as many do. And although he did not put the cartoons above described in execution, he nevertheless did paint some pictures; among others, one for the nuns of 8an Domenico, in Florence, a w’ork in which it appeared to him that he had acquitted himself very well ”

“ The reputation of Andrea could not now attain to any higher degree in this branch of art, and as he was one of those men who are not satisfied with excellence in one thing, but who desire to possess the same distinction in others also, he turned his attention to painting, and by means of study, produced the cartoon of a combat of undraped figures, very well executed with the pen, to be afterwards painted on the fa9ade of a building. ”

“ The subject of this picture is the Baptism of Christ by St. John, and being assisted in it by Leonardo da Vinci, then a youth and Andrea’s disciple, the former painted therein the figure of an angel, which was much superior to the other parts of the picture. [22] Perceiving this, Andrea resolved never again to take pencil in hand, since Leonardo, though still so young, had acquitted himself in that art better than he had done. ”

“ The incredulity of Thomas, and his too great desire to assure himself of the truth of the fact related to him, are clearly perceived in his countenance, but at the same time the love with which he lays his hand most tenderly on the side of Christ is also manifest. ”

“ Vasari, it does not stand for Ser, but for Sepulcrum. —Bottari. ↑ See the Ragionamento Primo, Giornata seconda, of Vasari. ↑ He was not the first, although among the first. The custom of moulding heads in the manner here described had prevailed somewhat earlier. In the Uffizj, there is a cast of Fillipo Brunelleschi, taken when Verrocchio could not have been more than fourteen years old.' —Bottari. ”

“ It is to be observed, that the latest Florentine commentators throw doubt on the assertion, that this is the Marsyas restored by Verrocchio, but their dissent fronr the general opinion respecting it does not appear to be well grounded. ↑ Bartolommeo Colleoni, who entered the service at Venice, as general of her armies, in 1467.— See Cicognara, Iscrizioni Veneziane, vol. ii. p. 298. ↑ From the will of Verrocchio, cited by Gaye, Carteggio ineditOy &c., vol. i. pp. 367—369, it would appear that the model only had been completed. ”