Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni

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.

He had asked that his pupil Lorenzo di Credi, who was then in charge of his workshop in Florence, should be entrusted with the finishing of the statue, but the Venetian state after considerable delay commissioned Alessandro Leopardi to do this.

[1][2] Verrocchio based the sculpture on Donatello's statue of Gattamelata, as well as on the ancient statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, the St. Mark's Horses in Venice, the Regisole (a late antiquity work in Pavia, now lost), and the frescoes of the Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood by Paolo Uccello and of the Equestrian Monument of Niccolò da Tolentino by Andrea del Castagno.

[citation needed] Although it was not placed where Colleoni had intended, art historian Passavent emphasised how fine it looks in its actual position, writing that "the magnificent sense of movement in this figure is shown to superb advantage in its present setting"[3] and that, as sculpture, "it far surpasses anything the century had yet aspired to or thought possible".

[5] This is in contrast to Donatello's statue at Padua of the condottiere known as Gattamelata with its "air of calm command" and all Verrocchio's effort "has been devoted to the rendering of movement and of a sense of strain and energy".