We now find the sixth salon, to see Verrocchio’s David, of which I have already spoken.  This wholly charming boy, a little nearer life perhaps than Donatello’s, although not quite so radiantly distinguished, illustrates the association of Verrocchio and Leonardo as clearly as any of the paintings do; for the head is sheer Leonardo.  At the Palazzo Vecchio we saw Verrocchio’s boy with the dolphin—­that happy bronze lyric—­and outside Or San Michele his Christ and S. Thomas, in Donatello and Michelozzo’s niche, with the flying cherubim beneath.  But as with Donatello, so with Verrocchio, one must visit the Bargello to see him, in Florence, most intimately.  For here are not only his David, which once known can never be forgotten and is as full of the Renaissance spirit as anything ever fashioned, whether in bronze, marble, or paint, but—­upstairs—­certain other wonderfully beautiful things to which we shall come, and, that being so, I would like here to say a little about their author.

Verrocchio is a nickname, signifying the true eye.  Andrea’s real name was de’ Cioni; he is known to fame as Andrea of the true eye, and since he had acquired this style at a time when every eye was true enough, his must have been true indeed.  It is probable that he was a pupil of Donatello, who in 1435, when Andrea was born, was forty-nine, and in time he was to become the master of Leonardo:  thus are the great artists related.  The history of Florentine art is practically the history of a family; one artist leads to the other—­the genealogy of genius.  The story goes that it was the excellence of the angel contributed by Leonardo to his master’s picture of the Baptism of Christ (at the Accademia) which decided Verrocchio to paint no more, just as Ghiberti’s superiority in the relief of Abraham and Isaac drove Brunelleschi from sculpture.  If this be so, it accounts for the extraordinarily small number of pictures by him.  Like many artists of his day Verrocchio was also a goldsmith, but he was versatile above most, even when versatility was a habit, and excelled also as a musician.  Both Piero de’ Medici and Lorenzo employed him to design their tournament costumes; and it was for Lorenzo that he made this charming David and the boy and the dolphin.  His greatest work of all is the bronze equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni in Venice, the finest thing of its kind in the world, and so glorious and exciting indeed that every city should have a cast of it in a conspicuous position just for the good of the people.  It was while at work upon this that Verrocchio died, at the age of fifty-three.  His body was brought from Venice by his pupil Lorenzo di Credi, who adored him, and was buried in S. Ambrogio in Florence.  Lorenzo di Credi painted his portrait, which is now in the Uffizi—­a plump, undistinguished-looking little man.