Andrea del Verrocchio

Verrocchio was one of the leading artists of late 15th-century Florence, mainly celebrated as a sculptor rather than a painter. A number of important painters trained in his studio, including Leonardo da Vinci. Some of Leonardo's artistic concerns, such as the twisting pose known as figura serpentinata, and the study of contrasting expressions, originate with Verrocchio.

Andrea del Verrocchio 
Verrocchio trained as a goldsmith, and perhaps with Donatello, the leading Early Renaissance sculptor, who was a major influence on him. Paintings certainly attributable to Verrocchio are rare. The best known is the 'Baptism of Christ' in the Uffizi, Florence, in which the angel to the left is the work of Leonardo. Lorenzo di Credi and Pietro Perugino were his other main studio assistants and they adopted features of his pictorial style.

The most ambitious of his sculptures is the equestrian statue of the military commander Bartolommeo Colleoni, carried out for Venice in the 1480s, which is a response to Donatello's equestrian statue of Gattamelata in Padua. In Florence Verrocchio worked extensively for the Medici family.