Course : ENGLISH B CLASS

Read the text and decide if each statement (1-10) is True (A), False (B) or Not Mentioned (C).

Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488) was born in Florence in or about 1435. His father worked as a tile and brick maker and, later, as a tax collector. Verrocchio never married, and had to provide financial support for some members of his family. He was at first apprenticed to a goldsmith. He was an Italian sculptor, goldsmith and painter who worked at the court of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence in the early Renaissance. Few paintings are attributed to him with certainty, but a number of important painters were trained at his workshop. His pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi. His greatest importance was as a sculptor and his last work, the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, is universally accepted as a masterpiece.

A small painting on panel of Tobias (“Tobias and the angel”) as he sets out on his journey with the Archangel Raphael, carrying the fish with which he was to heal his father's blindness, was probably painted as a private devotional picture. It is now in London at the National Gallery. “The Baptism of Christ”, now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, was painted in 1474-75. In this work Verrocchio was assisted by Leonardo da Vinci, then a youth and a member of his workshop, who painted the angel on the left and the part of the background above. Andrea resolved never to touch the brush again because Leonardo, his pupil, had far surpassed him. “The Madonna enthroned with John the Baptist and St Donato” is in the Cathedral at Pistoia. It had been left unfinished and was completed by Lorenzo di Credi when Verrocchio was in Venice near the end of his life. He died in Venice in 1488. He is one of the most important Italian sculptors of the Renaissance.

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