Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (Venice)
sculpture by Andrea del Verrocchio in Venice, Italy
The equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni is a Renaissance sculpture in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, Italy, created by Andrea del Verrocchio in 1480–1488. Portraying the condottiero Bartolomeo Colleoni (who served for a long time under the Republic of Venice), it has a height of 395 cm excluding the pedestal. It is the second major equestrian statue of the Italian Renaissance, after Donatello's equestrian statue of Gattamelata (1453).
History
In 1475, the Condottiero Colleoni, a former Captain General of the Republic of Venice, died and by his will left a substantial part of his estate to the Republic on condition that a statue of himself should be commissioned and set up in the Piazza San Marco. In 1479 the Republic announced that it would accept the legacy, but that (as statues were not permitted in the Piazza) the statue would be placed in the open space in front of the Scuola of San Marco. A competition was arranged to enable a sculptor to be selected. Three sculptors competed for the contract, Verrocchio from Florence, Alessandro Leopardi from Venice and Bartolomeo Vellano from Padua. Verrocchio made a model of his proposed sculpture using wood and black leather, while the others made models of wax and terracotta. The three models were exhibited in Venice in 1483 and the contract was awarded to Verrocchio. He then opened a workshop in Venice and made the final wax model which was ready to be cast in bronze, but he died in 1488, before this was done.
The public source identifies “Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (Venice)” as sculpture by Andrea del Verrocchio in Venice, Italy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Equestrian, statue and Bartolomeo.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q473237. Authority coordinates are 45.439, 12.341. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1480, 1488, 1453 and 1475.
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This entry incorporates text from “Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (Venice)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.