The picturesque campo outside of Chiesa di Zanipolo in Venice features the interesting sculpture of the Venetian condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni.
Condottieri were mercenary soldiers fighting for money, usually signing contract only for a period of time necessary to conduct a battle, and during his life Colleoni used to fight under different banners, mostly on the Venetian side, but for some time he served also in the army of Milan.
Finally he died as a Captain General of republic of Venice leaving to the state a sum of over 300 000 ducats under the condition that the city will erect his monument facing San Marco.
The competition for making the sculpture had been won by Andrea Verrocchio, but later the commission approached another artist to do the figure of Colleoni leaving to Verocchio only the horse to cast. This infuriated Verocchio, who then destroyed the first version.
Andrea died in 1488 leaving only a model in clay and in his will he appointed his student from Florence Lorenzo di Credi, but Venetian Signoria preffered a local artist Alessandro Leopardi, who gladly finished the sculpture leaving his signature on it.
In 1496 the monument was finally done and put on Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo in front of Scuola di San Marco, instead of expected by Colleoni Piazza San Marco.
Before modeling Verocchio studied the former statues, including the one of Gattamelata by Donatello and several ancient Roman sculptors. In his work he created the sense of movement and the new position of the rider on the horse full of dynamism and life.
This is the first successful equestrian stature, when horse is standing only on three legs, which is difficult to cast in bronze as the statues may easy to collapse loosing the balance. This achievement has been overtaken only by Pietro Tacca in 1636-1640, with the equestrian monument to Philip IV (Plaza de Oriente, Madrid), when the horse is resting on only two legs.
[ photo courtesy of Nicholas Laughlin]
