Leonardo da Vinci: Thinker, Researcher, and Poet

relief, as these were the things that, more than any others,
accorded with his imagination. Ser Piero, seeing this,
and considering the height of that genius, took some
drawings one day and carried them to Andrea del Ver-
rocchio, who was very much his friend, and urged him
earnestly (strettamente Italian: strictly or urgently.) that he should tell him
whether Leonardo, if he devoted himself to drawing, would
gain anything from it. Andrea was astonished when
he saw Leonardo’s powerful beginnings, and encouraged
Ser Piero to let him pursue this matter;
therefore Ser Piero commanded Leonardo to go into the
workshop of Andrea: which Leonardo
was exceedingly glad to do." This "beginning of Leonardo"
could not be told more charmingly in a novella;
but we search in vain for a date, or for
any detail that would stand up to scrutiny. Ver-
rocchio was certainly, among all the masters in Florence, the
one who suited Leonardo best. In every artistic
technique—as a goldsmith, mosaicist, painter,
sculptor in bronze and marble—he was equally experienced; an eternally
brooding theorist and yet an artist whose
path led with tremendous momentum from the simple, solid
Medici sarcophagus, with which he first dis-
tinguished himself, up to the most beautiful equestrian monument in the world, that
of Colleoni Bartolomeo Colleoni, a famous mercenary leader (condottiero) honored with a statue in Venice.. During Leonardo’s years of apprenticeship, it is
provable that the Palla Italian: ball or sphere. of
Santa Maria del Fiore was created at Verrocchio's workshop—that sphere which
bears the cross, a masterpiece of construction, it seems, hammered
in eight parts from copper and gilded in fire.
Leonardo mentions this work: "Remember the sol-
der with which the Palla of S. Maria del Fiore
was soldered" (Ms. G. Fol. 84 v.). There was also the delightful
David in bronze, whose head Leonardo drew in a free,
infinitely lovely variation (Museum in Weimar).
Above all, however, if tradition
does not lie, the "Baptism of Christ" was created (Florence, Aca-