Verrocchio, while finishing the “Doubting of Thomas”…

Verrocchio, while finishing the “Doubting of Thomas” group in Florence, had been summoned to Venice in around 1483 to create an equestrian monument to the condottiere Bartolommeo Colleoni; a work of great dramatic power.

Unfinished at Verrocchio’s death on October 7, 1488, the Venetian sculptor Alessandro Leopardi is charged with the task of completing the work.

Leopardi, who was born (and will die) in Venice, is first heard of in 1482 and is said to have worked at the mint.

He was once reputed to have designed the sepulchral monument of doge Andrea Vendramin, now in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo, but this is generally now thought to have been the work of Tullio Lombardo, though Leopardi may have contributed some figures.

He had in 1479 submitted a model for the competition initiated by the Signoria in Venice to find a sculptor for an equestrian monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni.

Three sculptors had submitted models, including Verrocchio, to whom the contract had been awarded.

Leopardi had been exiled for five years on a charge of fraud in 1487, and is recalled in 1490 by the senate to finish Verrocchio's impressive statue of Colleoni, which the Venetians had commissioned him to make in accordance with the provisions of Colleoni's will.

Verocchio, having made the clay model in Venice, had died in 1488, before it had been cast in bronze.

He asked in his will that his pupil, Lorenzo di Credi, should be engaged to arrange for it to be cast, but after much delay the Venetians in 1490 had selected Leopardi to cast it and he also made the pedestal on which it stands.

His name (in Latin) is inscribed on the horse's girth: "ALEXANDER . LEOPARDUS . V . P . OPUS", so that early authorities thought that the work was entirely his.

When Colleoni bequeathed the money for his statue, he stipulated that it should be erected in the Piazza San Marco, but the Venetian state cannot allow this and compromises by having it installed near the Scuola San Marco outside the church of SS Giovanni è Paolo, where it stands today.