A Verrocchio Sculpture as a Source for Leonardo
and Raphael: The Evidence of Drawings
Elizabeth A. Eisenberg
When Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488), hav-
ing begun work on the Venetian equestrian mon-
ument honoring Bartolommeo Colleoni (1400–
1475), learned that the Venetian Signoria intended
to reassign the commission for Colleoni’s effigy
to Bartolomeo Bellano [Vellano da Padova] (c.
1437–c. 1497) while leaving him to do the horse,
Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) reported that:
Andrea broke the legs and head of his model and
returned in great disdain to Florence, without saying a
word. The Signoria, receiving news of this, gave him
to understand that he should never be bold enough to
return to Venice, for they would cut his head off; to
which he wrote in answer that he would take good care
not to, because, once they had cut a man’s head off, it
was not in their power to put it on again, and certainly
not one like his own, whereas he could have replaced the
head that he had knocked off his horse with one even
more beautiful.1
The Venetians, impressed and no doubt amused,
returned the commission in its entirety to Verroc-
chio and doubled his payment.
That the sculptural heads created by Ver-
rocchio were esteemed by his contemporaries
and later generations of artists, and for reasons
beyond their monetary value, is confirmed by the
previously unobserved appearance of a humble
terracotta workshop model by the master in the
drawings of Raphael (1483–1520) and Leonardo
5
da Vinci (1452–1519). It is well established that
fifteenth-century Florentine artists made use of
sculptural models,2 but this bust is of particular
interest for the ways in which it was transformed
and rendered almost malleable through the gen-
erative power of drawing.
Analysis of the bust and the art works it
informed expands on the known techniques
practiced in Verrocchio’s workshop and reveals
that, in addition to his impact on Leonardo’s
sculptural conception of two-dimensional form,3
Verrocchio influenced the younger artist in far
more complex and technically specific ways, play-
ing a formative and hitherto unexplored role in
the development of a number of Leonardo’s key
practices as a draftsman. This is a prolegomenon
to a broader and more far-ranging exploration by
this author of the influence of Verrocchio and the
nexus between sculpture, painting, and drawing
in Florentine art in the years around 1500.4
Vasari related that Verrocchio, both a painter
and a sculptor, created clay figures and cast limbs
in plaster to serve as models for his paintings,5
a practice corroborated by the repeated appear-
ance of identically posed hands in many of his
workshop’s compositions.6 It is also confirmed
by drawings by Lorenzo di Credi (c. 1456–1536),
Verrocchio’s pupil and heir, that show a model
of a foot cut flat across at the ankle, studied from
different viewpoints, such as those in the Uffizi,
Florence,7 and the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica,
5
 Figure 1

LORENZO DI
CREDI

Studies of Feet
and Fragment of
a Beard

Rome, Istituto
Centrale per la
Grafica

Rome (Fig. 1).8 The studio must have looked
something like the gardens owned by the Medici
family near the convent of S. Marco, Florence,
which, according to Vasari, were strewn with—in
addition to white marble limbs—sculptures, paint-
ings, cartoons, drawings, and models.9 Among
Verrocchio’s terracotta sculptures, Vasari accorded
specific notice to “una testa di S. Girolamo, che è
tenuta maravigliosa” (“a head of St. Jerome, which
is held to be marvelous”).10 Attempts have been
made over the years to connect the bust acclaimed
by Vasari with various sculptures of St. Jerome, but
there is no doubt that the so-called Bust of the Pen-
itent St. Jerome discovered by Giancarlo Gentilini
in 1990 in the attic of the Palazzo Chigi Saracini,
Siena (Figs. 2–3), is the work in question.11 The

Figures 2–3

ANDREA DEL
VERROCCHIO

Bust of a Man

Siena, Palazzo
Chigi Saracini

6
6
 the wrinkles at the outer corners of the eye have
Figure 4
been suggestively modeled without resorting to
cutting into the clay with a stylus, and the enigmat- ANDREA DEL
VERROCCHIO
ic set of the mouth is at once smiling and serious, (copy after)
shifting according to the angle of observation.14
Bust of a Man
The use of the Chigi Saracini bust as the model
Frankfurt-am-Main,
for multiple paintings of St. Jerome executed in Städtische Galerie
the Verrocchio workshop, as Gentilini pointed Liebieghaus
out, confirms that it was indeed held in the high
regard recorded by Vasari. Its two-dimensional
progeny include the Head of St. Jerome, in tem-
pera on paper, in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (Fig.
5);15 the Crucifixion between Sts. Anthony Abbot and
Jerome, stolen in 1970 from S. Maria in Argiano,
San Casciano in Val di Pesa (Figs. 6–7);16 and a
frescoed St. Jerome in S. Domenico, Pistoia (Fig.
8).17 It is apparent that, while deeply individual-
ized, the Chigi bust was something of a workshop
workhorse, serving as the initial model for St.
Jerome’s head in multiple works of art.
bust joined the Chigi Saracini collection at the end
of the eighteenth century and was likely painted in
imitation of bronze soon thereafter.12 The figure’s
Figure 5
nose appears to have been broken sometime after
ANDREA DEL
this point, since the paint does not extend over the
VERROCCHIO
break. A close record of the bust’s original appear-
Head of St. Jerome
ance with the nose intact can be found in a stucco
copy of c. 1500, formed from an imprint cast of the Florence, Palazzo
Pitti
bust and now in the collection of the Städtische
Galerie Liebieghaus, Frankfurt-am-Main (Fig. 4).13
Even without its nose, the bust is an expres-
sive and masterful tour de force. The figure angles
his face upward and to the left as he directs his
soulful gaze toward heaven. The sharpness of his
cheekbones is tempered by the soft hollow of
his cheeks, whose sculptural expanse and vertical
expression lines create striking planes of light and
shadow. Verrocchio somehow conveyed in dense
clay the delicacy of the skin that hangs just below
the strong jaw, contrasted against the solid muscles
and sinews of the neck, which is lightly lined with
wrinkles that appear to have been earned rather
than incised. The strength of the bone structure,
the deep set of the eyes within the skull, and the
pronounced brow together give the figure a mag-
isterial quality. The muscles of the forehead and

7
7
 that they record Raphael’s stereometric study of
Figures 6–7 (top left
and right)
the bust, with one drawing recording the left
side and the other, the right. The drawings date
ANDREA DEL
VERROCCHIO
from Raphael’s earliest time in Florence, where
he is documented between 1504 and 1508 and
Crucifixion
between Sts. where, visiting the studios of leading Florentine
Anthony Abbot artists, he would most likely have studied the bust
and Jerome
in the workshop of Verrocchio’s pupil and heir,
Detail of St. Lorenzo di Credi.20 Although these sheets are small
Jerome’s head
in size, they are more than just quick sketches,
Formerly San having been executed with careful attention paid
Casciano in Val
di Pesa, S. Maria to the fall of light and shadow and to the resulting
in Argiano (stolen description of form, as well as to capturing the
1970) sense of emotion conveyed in the upward gaze,
the powerful brows, and the corners of the mouth.
While Raphael elected to soften the extreme pro-
Raphael jection of the bust’s square chin, he demonstrated
Figure 8 (above)
That the Chigi bust was recognized as a strong his faithfulness to his model in such details as the
ANDREA DEL model on which to base further works of art is curl of individual hairs within the brows.21
VERROCCHIO
demonstrated not only through its repeated re- The sensitivity of these drawings reflects Raph-
St. Jerome
appearances in Verrocchio’s own work and that ael’s esteem for Verrocchio as a sculptor, extending
Fresco of his workshop, as we have seen above, but also even to those objects that he created as workshop
Pistoia, S. Domenico through its immortalization by Raphael in two tools. Uniquely among the drawings of Raphael’s
silverpoint drawings from his so-called green green sketchbook, the head study that is turned
sketchbook in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille toward the viewer’s right (i.e., Fig. 10) is defined
(Figs. 9–10).18 These drawings are so fine that they with white heightening, further emphasizing its
have until now been regarded as “surely studied three dimensionality and the plasticity of its model.22
from life.”19 On comparing the drawings with the Scholars have marveled at the drawings’ “sculptur-
bust, however, it becomes immediately apparent esque quality” and the masterful “treatment of light

8
8
 Figure 9 Figure 10

RAPHAEL (after RAPHAEL (after

ANDREA DEL ANDREA DEL
VERROCCHIO) VERROCCHIO)

Study of the Bust Study of the Bust

of a Man of a Man

Lille, Palais des Lille, Palais des

Beaux-Arts Beaux-Arts

9
9
 the soulful gaze that he had copied so carefully in
Figure 11
the first Lille drawing (i.e., Fig. 9), here translated
RAPHAEL
into his own artistic idiom. The Oxford drawing
St. Jerome with a has been trimmed on the left, and Sylvia Feri-
View of Perugia
(recto of Fig. 12)
no-Pagden has suggested that the absent portion
contained a cross on which Jerome’s seemingly
Oxford, Ashmolean
Museum aimless gaze once focused.30 This is conceivably
the case, but since Raphael faithfully integrated the
model as set by Verrocchio into his composition, it
is Jerome’s gaze that dictated the placement of the
cross rather than the other way around.
The humanizing influence that Verrocchio
had on Raphael’s work, warming it from the
more formal style of Perugino (c. 1450–1523)
and Pinturicchio (c. 1452–1513), is discernible
not only in the expressive face of the Ashmolean
St. Jerome, but also in the sheet’s verso. Here is
found the spired church that conclusively links
the sheet to Raphael’s Sant’Antonio di Padova
altarpiece (known as the Colonna Altarpiece) in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,31
and shade” used to describe the topography of the most likely begun before Raphael’s official reloca-
flesh,23 but those descriptors have never led to the tion to Florence in 1504. This dictates a date even
hypothesis of a sculptural source.24 The drawings earlier than 1504 for the Ashmolean sheet and, by
have also been lauded for their “Leonardesque” extension, the Lille head studies that informed it.
quality,25 a claim that elides but ultimately high-
lights just how much Verrocchio influenced what
we perceive as Leonardo’s singular style, as well
as the extent to which Raphael devoted time and
attention to the study of works by Verrocchio
when there were Leonardo drawings to hand.
After conscientiously studying Verrocchio’s bust
in his silverpoint drawings, Raphael then integrated
the figure into his own pen-and-ink compositional
study St. Jerome with a View of Perugia, on the recto
of a double-sided sheet in the Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford (Fig. 11).26 This shows the district of Peru-
Figure 12 gia called the Borgo S. Angelo,27 in front of which,
RAPHAEL separated from the city by a river and a stretch of
Sketches with wilderness, the figure of St. Jerome kneels in his
the Spire of formulaic penitential pose.28 Only the saint’s head,
Sant’Antonio di the single element for which Raphael had created
Padova and a
Madonna lactans studies based on a sculptural prototype, has been
(verso of Fig. 11) worked up in detail, while the rest of his body is
Oxford, Ashmolean described in a simple line drawing.29 Raphael sen-
Museum sitively rendered the form-defining shadows and

10
10
 Turning the paper 180 degrees, we also find on
Figure 13
the verso an intimate study of a Madonna lactans
RAPHAEL
(Figs. 12–13). The figures are cleanly drawn with
little evidence of exploratory sketching, and the Detail of Figure 12
motif is enclosed within very faint framing lines, Oxford, Ashmolean
with a very schematic landscape indicated in the Museum

background. The frame suggests that the drawing

is either for or after a complete composition, but
the fact that it is inspired by a work of art made
in the Verrocchio workshop tradition seems un-
deniable. As Ferino-Pagden noted, the crossed legs
of the Christ Child, with his left leg tucked under
the right one, matches perfectly the pose seen in
Lorenzo di Credi’s Virgin and Child in the National
Gallery, London (Fig. 14).32 Moreover, Raphael’s
figure of the Virgin, in the angle of her body and
head, corresponds to the type copied over and
over by Verrocchio’s students, and by Lorenzo’s
students in turn, as evidenced in the painting from
his workshop in the David Owsley Museum of
Art, Ball State University, Muncie, IN (Fig. 15).33

Figure 14 (left)

LORENZO DI
CREDI

Virgin and Child

London, National
Gallery

Figure 15 (right)

LORENZO DI
CREDI (workshop
of)

Virgin and Child

Muncie, IN, Ball

State University,
David Owsley
Museum of Art

11
11

It seems likely that Raphael, during the same
Figure 16
period in which he engaged with Verrocchio’s
RAPHAEL terracotta bust, must have studied––and possibly
Studies of the made a drawn copy of––a Verrocchio or Lorenzo
Virgin and Child workshop painted depiction of the Madonna lactans.
Oxford, Christ The Florentine—and specifically the “Verroc-
Church Picture
chio workshop-esque”—character of the Madonna
Gallery
lactans on the Ashmolean verso is reinforced by
its reappearance in a drawing that is dated firmly
within Raphael’s Florentine period and prac-
tice, the Studies of the Virgin and Child at Christ
Church, Oxford (Fig. 16), datable c. 1505–7.34
Although drawn in Raphael’s quick-flowing par-
12
abolic strokes, as if he were searching for or
inventing the forms (a technique adapted from
Leonardo),35 at least the upper half of the compo-
sition appears to have been modeled on the same
source as the Madonna lactans detail on the verso
of the Ashmolean sheet. The figures’ poses cor-
respond, and the Virgin’s headdress recalls more
closely the gauzy veils favored in the workshops
of Verrocchio and Lorenzo di Credi than the
thick fabric portrayed in the Ashmolean drawing.
(There it appears that Raphael gave the Virgin
the heavy, retardataire draperies prescribed by the
nuns of Sant’Antonio di Padova for the figures
in their Colonna Altarpiece, which Raphael was
then painting.36) Most importantly, we see the
same intimate angling of the Virgin’s head toward
her child and the naturalistic detail of the Child
drawing his legs into his body as he suckles.
There are no extant drawings or paintings
to suggest that Perugino ever created a Madonna
lactans, a phenomenon Ferino-Pagden attributed
to Perugino’s determination to “eliminate all nat-
ural, realistic and, above all, transitory expressions
from his work in order to create an idealized
world.”37 Although Perugino, himself a student
of Verrocchio, was influenced by Verrocchio’s
sculpture and learned to draw and paint after
sculptural models, he did so to capture their “lan-
guidity,” classical typologies, and voluminous dra-
peries.38 By contrast, Raphael’s desire to inject his
compositions with humanity and naturalism must
have come not from Florence as filtered through
Perugino, but directly from his own interaction
with Florentine models.
The Ashmolean drawing, which features Ver-
rocchio and Lorenzo di Credi workshop models
depicted on both the recto and verso, thus sup-
ports the suggestion advanced by several scholars
that before 1504 Raphael made a trip to Florence,39
and, more specifically, to the workshop that
housed Verrocchio’s artistic effects and legacy—
in other words, that of Lorenzo di Credi. The
development of Raphael’s drawing style and its
emotional quotient speak to a knowledge of Flor-
entine forms, and the Madonna lactans is not the
only one of Raphael’s early Madonnas to reveal
12
 an artistic link to Lorenzo’s workshop and to the
Verrocchio tradition in particular.40 Identifying
the Lille head studies with Verrocchio’s Chigi
bust and connecting them to the Ashmolean sheet
provides important additional evidence for the
idea of Raphael’s early presence in the city.
Raphael’s drawings after Verrocchio’s bust
also speak to the prestige enjoyed by Verrocchio’s
humble workshop model. At a time when every
artist in Florence, Raphael among them, was
worshipfully studying the glories of “la scuola del
mondo”41—that is, the cartoons for the Battle of
Anghiari by Leonardo and the Battle of Cascina by
Michelangelo42—Raphael chose to visit Lorenzo
di Credi’s studio and to devote himself to drawing
not one but two studies of Verrocchio’s unfin-
ished terracotta bust.
On an even more fundamental level, Raph-
ael’s drawings imply that Lorenzo di Credi, after
inheriting the entire contents of Verrocchio’s
studio,43 deemed his master’s old model worthy
of preservation in his own workshop. The bust is
not itemized in Verrocchio’s will, which simply
names Lorenzo as executor and heir to the general
contents of his Florentine and Venetian homes
and workshops, nor is it listed in the only slightly
more detailed post-mortem inventory given in an
official legal document relating to a suit between
Verrocchio’s brother Tommaso and Lorenzo di
Credi.44 The latter is a rather summary list, one
that surely did not include every item found in the
workshop (drawings, for example, are not cited).
The Chigi bust also does not appear as a motif in
Lorenzo’s own drawings, raising further doubts
about its whereabouts between Verrocchio’s time
in Florence and Raphael’s sojourn there, but, as
a portraitist, Lorenzo’s focus on recording living,
individualized sitters could explain its absence
from his graphic oeuvre.45 Why he never used it
as a model in one of his painted religious com-
positions remains an open question. Perhaps its
preservation in his workshop, despite its apparent
lack of adoption as a motif, speaks even more
persuasively to the respect with which Lorenzo
regarded his master’s model, treating it like a
finished sculpture rather than as a workshop tool.
13
Advancing and reversing the aging
process
The importance placed on this bust is well
founded. The above-mentioned paintings by
Verrocchio and drawings by Raphael each utilize
the Chigi bust as a template for two-dimensional
figures of St. Jerome and faithfully reproduce its
modeled physiognomy. I propose that the list of
art works within Verrocchio’s own oeuvre in
which the bust features can be further expanded,
this time with a new identity. Pinpointing the
mechanics of that transformation unveils a specific
method of metamorphosis employed by Verroc-
chio and transmitted to Leonardo that is entirely
reliant on the generative power of drawing.
The Baptism of Christ in the Uffizi, Florence
(Fig. 17),46 was commissioned from Verrocchio by
his brother Don Simone after he became abbot of
S. Salvi, Florence, in 1468 and was executed in two
campaigns. The first phase involved Verrocchio lay-
ing out the composition and finishing much of the
painting in tempera. During the second campaign,
in the mid-1470s (when he was swamped with
commissions), he delegated elements of the painting
to Leonardo,47 who worked in oil.48 According to
David Alan Brown, the altarpiece was begun when
Figure 17
ANDREA DEL
VERROCCHIO
and LEONARDO
DA VINCI
Baptism of Christ
Florence, Gallerie
degli Uffizi
13
 the sculptor Verrocchio “first took up the brush,”
and he further noted that the “rather crudely handled
parts of the picture,” which for him included the fig-
ure of the Baptist, “represent [Verrocchio’s] efforts to
turn sculpture into painting.”49 Whereas this technical
judgment is likely a subjective view based on the use
of tempera and the chronology is possibly mistaken,50
Figure 18
in his last point––“to turn sculpture into painting”––
ANDREA DEL Brown touched on an essential truth that he did not
VERROCCHIO
fully explore.
Detail of Figure 17 Speaking both to the artist’s creativity and to his
Florence, Gallerie sculptor’s commitment to verisimilitude, I propose
degli Uffizi that Verrocchio used the Chigi bust not only as a
model for several elderly figures of St. Jerome, but
also for the head of the more youthful St. John the
Baptist in the Baptism of Christ. Although the painted
Baptist (Fig. 18) and his sculpted predecessor (Fig.
19) differ in age, the concordance of their underlying
physiognomic anatomy seems undeniable. Corre-
spondences include the angle and strength of the jaw
and cheekbone; the set of the eyes in their sockets and
the angle of the gaze; the line and shape of the lips;
the hollow of the cheek and the lines of the dimple;
and the strength of the chin. One is only missing the
bust’s nose to complete the comparison, a reservation
Figure 19 that is satisfactorily resolved by comparing the paint-
ANDREA DEL
ing with the stucco copy.51
VERROCCHIO Luciano Bellosi, in arguing for his attribution of
Detail of Figure the Pistoia fresco (see Fig. 8) to Verrocchio, likened
2, photographed the graphic tension and anatomy of the frescoed
from a slightly Jerome’s right hand to that of the Uffizi Baptist’s left
different angle
arm—a comparison to which I would add the pro-
Siena, Palazzo
nounced and sinuous musculature of the executioner
Chigi Saracini
in Verrocchio’s silver Beheading of St. John the Baptist
for the Baptistery altar, now in the Museo dell’Opera
del Duomo, Florence.52 Yet although Bellosi com-
pared elements of the anatomy of the elderly and
youthful saints, he stopped short of comparing their
physiognomies, modeled on two different interpreta-
tions of the same bust. Unlike Brown, I have always
felt that the Baptist was the most naturalistic of the
figures in the Baptism of Christ, Leonardo’s other-
worldly angel at the far left included. Verrocchio’s
use of an actual three-dimensional model rather than
a conceptual type for his head of the Baptist makes
sense of that impression.

14
14
 That the practice of mentally aging up or down
a single model to create multiple distinct personali-
ties was well established in Verrocchio’s workshop
is supported, I would contend, by another exam-
ple, a well-known double-sided drawing whose
significance in this regard has previously gone
unnoticed. Attributed to either Verrocchio or
Lorenzo di Credi, A Standing Bishop and Other Fig- Figure 20
ures in the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh,53 VERROCCHIO
prominently features on the recto (Fig. 20) a study or LORENZO DI
CREDI
of St. Donatus for the Madonna di Pistoia altarpiece
commissioned in 1478, surrounded by silverpoint A Standing Bishop
and Other Figure
studies of garzoni. Three studies in the upper half Studies (recto of
of the sheet—two to the left of Donatus and Fig. 21)
one upside down on the right—feature the same Edinburgh, Scottish
youth, his body angled almost in left profile with National Gallery
his head turned to meet the viewer’s gaze, his lips
ever so slightly parted. He appears twice again on
the verso of the sheet (Fig. 21), as the third from
the left in each of the repeated figure groupings,
the bust-length study from life now integrated into
a compositional arrangement.
The garzone was apparently captured on the
sheet one more time, although in transformed
guise. On the recto, to the right of St. Donatus’s
left elbow, is another head, this time of an elderly
figure.54 Careful scrutiny reveals that this study
in fact seems to have originated from the same

Figure 21

VERROCCHIO
or LORENZO DI
CREDI

Figure Studies
(verso of Fig. 20)

Edinburgh, Scottish
National Gallery

15
15
 noses and slightly-open mouths to the placement
Figures 22–23
of the eye sockets. In drawing the elderly head,
VERROCCHIO the artist––whether Verrocchio or Lorenzo55––
or LORENZO DI
CREDI used the garzone’s physiognomy as foundational
scaffolding and then advanced his age through the
Details of Figure
20 sinking of the cheeks, the extension of youthful
Edinburgh, Scottish
curls into a hoary beard, and the shifting of his gaze
National Gallery away from the model’s direct engagement with the
artist, transforming the youth into a Goliath-like
character. The multi-figure sheet essentially freeze-
Figure 24
frames the process employed by Verrocchio to turn
his sculpted bust of an elderly man (see Fig. 19)
LEONARDO DA
VINCI into his painted youthful Baptist (see Fig. 18), clar-
model as the others, or from the garzoni studies ifying a workshop practice in which he rendered
Two Grotesque
Profiles themselves. The four young and old heads on the the model’s physiognomic anatomy before using
Confronted recto are all seen from the same angle of observa- his imagination to transform its identity by either
Windsor Castle, tion (e.g., Figs. 22–23), as if neither the model nor advancing or reversing the aging process.
Royal Library (Royal the artist had moved. Insofar as one can see from
Collection Trust ©
Her Majesty Queen
the delicate silverpoint renderings, their facial anat- Leonardo da Vinci
Elizabeth II, 2019) omies are nearly identical, from the shapes of the As a practice implemented in Verrocchio’s work-
shop, where Leonardo was training, this trans-
formative process was apparently absorbed and
then advanced by the younger artist. Many of
Leonardo’s artistic practices and passions seem to
have originated as workshop exercises or standard
processes in his teacher’s orbit, which he then
pushed to their furthest limits.56 Even Wilhelm
Valentiner, who was no champion of Verrocchio,
admitted that “nearly all the motives [that] Leon-
ardo employed later are already contained in his
youthful works”57––works, it should be remem-
bered, that were created under the guidance of
Verrocchio. It appears that the practice of aging a
figure up or down, or of conceiving figures that
contrast smooth youth with wizened old age––and
no doubt the resulting art works that laid about
the workshop––led Leonardo to ruminate on this
type of juxtaposition. What began as a technique
or graphic device may have become an end in
itself, culminating in his series of sketched juxta-
positions of contrasting profiles58—beautiful young
men vs. old men, humans vs. animals, the strong
vs. the deformed, and grotesque men vs. grotesque
women, as in the drawing of Two Grotesque Profiles
Confronted in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle
(Fig. 24).59

16
16
 Having been trained in Verrocchio’s tech-
nique, Leonardo himself employed the practice
of aging a single figure up or down, as demon-
strated in two instances of transformation noted
by Martin Clayton, but not previously linked to
their technical origins in Verrocchio. While in
Verrocchio’s workshop, Leonardo fully adopted
the master’s facial types for his prototypical youth
and mature man, as exemplified by Verrocchio’s
Alexander the Great and Darius reliefs, presented by
Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–1492) to King Matthias
Corvinus of Hungary (reg. 1458–90). A workshop
version of the marble relief of Alexander the Great
survives in the National Gallery of Art, Washing- Figure 25 (above left) Figure 26 (above)
ton, DC (Fig. 25),60 and, although now lost, the ANDREA DEL LEONARDO DA
relief of Darius is reflected in Leonardo’s drawing VERROCCHIO VINCI
(workshop of)
in the British Museum, London (Fig. 26).61 (Like Bust of a Warrior in
Verrocchio, Leonardo adapted sculpture, as well Bust of a Warrior in Profile to the Left
Profile to the Right (“Darius”)
as ancient coins and medals, in paintings and (“Alexander the
drawings.)62 Speaking to Leonardo’s extension London, British
Great”)
Museum
of Verrocchio’s practice into the juxtaposition Washington, DC,
of “types,” he reinterpreted this contrasting pair National Gallery of Art

17
17
 Figure 27 Figure 28

LEONARDO DA LEONARDO DA
VINCI VINCI

Two Heads, with Old Man and a

Inscriptions in Youth, Facing
Notarial Script, Each Other in
and Studies of Profile
Mechanical Devices
Florence, Gabinetto
Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe
Disegni e Stampe degli degli Uffizi
Uffizi

in any number of drawings, including

three examples in the Uffizi, Florence:63
the early Young Man in the Antique Man-
ner;64 the mid-first Florentine-period Two
Heads, with Inscriptions in Notarial Script,
and Studies of Mechanical Devices (Fig. 27);65
and the first Milanese-period Old Man and
a Youth, Facing Each Other in Profile (Fig.
28),66 as well as in the unfinished painting
of the Adoration of the Magi, also in the
Uffizi (see Fig. 40 below).

18
18
 Yet another development is manifested by
Leonardo’s two studies of screaming heads for the
Battle of Anghiari, both in the Museum of Fine
Arts, Budapest. The elder (Fig. 29; front cover)67
accords with the type adapted from Verrocchio,
and was perhaps inspired by the head with a similar
expression in Verrocchio’s Resurrection terracotta
relief, now in the Bargello, Florence.68 Howev-
er, the typical youth would have appeared “too
delicate” for the scene.69 Leonardo thus seems to Figure 29 (above Figure 30 (above)
left)
have used the same three-dimensional model for LEONARDO DA
the older head to create an alternate figure, cap- LEONARDO DA VINCI
VINCI
turing the facial structure from another viewpoint, Study of the
before smoothing out the wrinkles (Fig. 30).70 This Studies of the Head of a Young
Heads of Two Warrior in Profile
practice is directly informed by Verrocchio’s own Warriors to the Left
transformation of the bust into either the elderly
Budapest, Museum Budapest, Museum
Jerome or younger Baptist some thirty years earlier. of Fine Arts of Fine Arts
Continuing in the same vein, it has been sug-
gested that Leonardo’s Head of an Old, Bearded
Man in Profile to the Left, also in the Royal Library,
Windsor Castle (Fig. 31),71 contains “some ele-

19
19
Figure 31 (left)

LEONARDO DA
VINCI

Head of an Old,
Bearded Man in
Profile to the Left

Windsor Castle,
Royal Library (Royal
Collection Trust ©
Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II, 2019)

Figure 32 (right)

FRANCESCO
MELZI (attributed
to)

Portrait of
Leonardo da Vinci

Windsor Castle,
Royal Library (Royal
Collection Trust ©
Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II, 2019)

ment of self-portraiture, even self-caricature,” a

Figure 33 conclusion likely based on a comparison with the
LEONARDO DA Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, attributed to Fran-
VINCI cesco Melzi (1491/93–c. 1570), which stems from
Detail of Figure 31 the material inherited by Melzi from Leonardo,
Windsor Castle, and now making up the extensive holdings at
Royal Library (Royal Windsor (Fig. 32).72 Correspondences between
Collection Trust ©
Her Majesty Queen
certain aspects of the head, profile, and hair of
Elizabeth II, 2019) each figure give credence to that claim, particu-
larly when one observes that Leonardo had origi-
nally sketched a younger, straighter nose (Fig. 33)
beneath the aged, drooping one that he ultimately
reinforced.73 The Head of an Old, Bearded Man
implies that, having absorbed Verrocchio’s prac-
tices while in his workshop, Leonardo continued
to implement the technique of advancing the age
of a plastic prototype late in his career, here using sheet also at Windsor (Fig. 34),74 captures this pro-
himself as the model to transform at will. cess of metamorphosis in action. In a maelstrom
As in the Edinburgh sheet drawn by either of transformations and juxtapositions, Leonardo
Verrocchio or Lorenzo di Credi, Leonardo’s stud- explored a series of similar, yet subtly varied pro-
ies of the Virgin and Child with the Infant Baptist, files; a confrontation between a snarling dragon and
and Heads in Profile, on the recto of a double-sided a roaring lion, both of whom are transfigured into

20
20
 an open-mouthed man in the upper left corner of the verso
Figures 34–35 Figure 36 (right)
(Fig. 35);75 and, between the Virgin’s legs on the recto, the (above left and right)
LEONARDO DA
directly contrasted profiles of an old man and a child (Fig.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
36). Just below, Leonardo’s preparation for these exercises VINCI
Detail of Figure
in transmutation is laid bare: There, he has drawn the head 34
Virgin and Child
of a youth and, to its lower right, traced the same profile with the Infant
Windsor Castle,
in a single clean pen line, a blank template to be filled in Baptist, and Heads
Royal Library (Royal
in Profile (recto)
with different features and thereby completely changed in Collection Trust ©
aspect and identity. This process mirrors Verrocchio’s tech- Studies of Heads Her Majesty Queen
in Profile (verso) Elizabeth II, 2019)
nique of using the plastic forms of either a bust or posed
garzone to capture the anatomically correct substructures of Windsor Castle,
Royal Library (Royal
the head before transforming that rendering into whom- Collection Trust ©
ever he desired. Leonardo so absorbed Verrocchio’s lesson Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II, 2019)

21
21
 of the exercise seem actually to lie in the workshop
practices he learned from Verrocchio. Creating a
work based on a study from life and then trans-
forming it through creative power was a central
tenet of Leonardo’s artistic theory,78 and the seeds
of that practice were, I submit, instilled in him in
Verrocchio’s workshop.
Tracing Verrocchio’s transformation of the
Chigi bust reveals a technique that proved foun-
dational for Leonardo’s artistic practice, but the
bust itself influenced Leonardo directly as well, as
reflected in works of art created in both Florence
and Milan. The previously mentioned absence of
the head in both Lorenzo di Credi’s work and the
workshop inventory forces one to consider wheth-
er the Chigi bust was one of the “certi San Girola-
mi” and “many heads of old men” that Leonardo
listed among the effects he took with him when
he departed Florence for Milan in 1481,79 and that

Figure 37
of studying observable anatomy to inform the
construction of a new figure that he even imple-
LEONARDO DA
VINCI
mented that technique to transfer facial structures
and physiognomies between species, as seen in the
Bust of a Man, and
the Head of a Lion dragon, lion, and man noted above and especially
in the knotted brows and gaping mouths shared
Windsor Castle,
Royal Library (Royal across his drawings of men, lions, and horses, as,
Collection Trust © for example, in the Bust of a Man, and the Head of
Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II, 2019)
a Lion at Windsor (Fig. 37).76 This tendency can
even be observed in his Budapest screaming heads
(see Figs. 29–30) and in his lions, such as those on
Figure 38 (right)
the bottom of Figure 34. While Leonardo’s jux-
FRANCESCO MELZI tapositions of grotesques or his confrontations of
Study after a Bust of old and young men are understood in relation to
an Old Man the “standard rhetorical device known in Greek as
Milan, Biblioteca antithesis and in Latin as contrapositum,”77 the origins
Ambrosiana

22
22
 it returned with him in 1501 in time for Raphael’s
Figure 39
first trip to Florence. It is impossible to establish
LEONARDO DA
the medium of those representations of Jerome,
VINCI
and many scholars are of the pragmatic opinion
Penitent St.
that the entry must refer to easily transportable Jerome
drawings rather than paintings or sculptures.80
Vatican City,
Leonardo did, however, take at least one relief Pinacoteca Vaticana
with him,81 and Gian Paolo Lomazzo (1538–1592)
relayed that Leonardo loved “making old men
more than anything else,” often reproducing them
in “numerous sculptures.”82 That sculpted heads of
old men were available in Leonardo’s workshop––
whether by Leonardo or by other artists––is sug-
gested by the inscription on a drawing by Melzi,
Study after a Bust of an Old Man in the Biblioteca
Figure 40
Ambrosiana, Milan (Fig. 38),83 which implies that
LEONARDO DA
it was made after a sculpture.84 Even if the likeli-
VINCI
hood of Leonardo toting Verrocchio’s Chigi bust
Adoration of the
of an old man around Italy is slim, an iteration of it Magi
certainly traveled to Milan with him in some form.
Florence, Gallerie
Leonardo’s Penitent St. Jerome in the Vatican degli Uffizi
(Fig. 39)85 was long dated c. 1480, that is, to the
end of his first Florentine period (c. 1464/69–
1481/83) due to the similar state of unfinish
that it shares with the Adoration of the Magi in
the Uffizi (Fig. 40),86 which was left unfinished
when the artist departed for Milan in 1481. In
their raw condition, both art works are essentially
painted drawings. This early dating for the St.
Jerome was always somewhat difficult to reckon
with the numerous Lombard drawings after it,
such as metalpoint drawings in the Royal Library
at Windsor Castle and the Ambrosiana, Milan.87
More recently, the painting has been dated later
and definitively reassigned to Leonardo’s first Mil-
anese period (1481/83–1499).88 The two paintings
are connected, however, and not only because of
their unfinished states: Both speak to Verrocchio’s
broad sculptural influence on Leonardo, mani-
fested in the sculptural conception of the figures
in space,89 but also to the specific impression that
the Chigi bust made on him. The naturalism
and expressiveness of the bust obviously struck a
chord with Leonardo, and it appears in the Adora-
tion in the mass of figures on the right, as the most
emotionally responsive figure of the whole group

23
23
 (Fig. 41).90 Leonardo’s esteem for Verrocchio as
a sculptor is evidenced in his use of the bust as a
model in a composition whose other sculptural
references are to Donatello (c. 1386–1466), whose
Bearded Prophet, now in the Museo dell’Opera del
Duomo, Florence,91 was adopted for the so-called
philosopher on the left, and his St. George, now in
the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence,92 for
the corresponding figure on the right.
The Vatican Penitent St. Jerome, although open-
mouthed like the Argiano altarpiece (see Fig. 7),93
is clearly also based on Verrocchio’s Chigi bust.
The two heads align perfectly (Figs. 42–43)—in
their physiognomy and proud bone structure; in
the hollows of their eye sockets and the ascetic
sinking of their cheeks that refrains from descend-
ing into caricature; in the broad, shallow pan of
Figure 41 the temple above the cheekbone and the seamless,
LEONARDO DA subtle gradations of flesh and shadow, so glaringly
VINCI mishandled in the workshop bust;94 in the strong
Detail of Figure 40 form of the neck, more tensed and more jowly in
Florence, Gallerie Leonardo’s composition only because of the angle
degli Uffizi of the head (and if one positions Verrocchio’s bust
24
at a parallel angle, their similarities become con-
gruences); and in their heavenward gazes full of
latent emotion. Pentiments reveal that Leonardo
shifted Jerome’s pupils slightly to our right so that
his gaze would meet the crucifix,95 but this shift
also aligns his pupils with those of his model.
While the painting gives the impression that
Leonardo fluidly rendered the figure of Jerome
“freehand,” infrared imaging of the panel shows
the underdrawing (Fig. 44) and indicates that he
used cartoons for independent elements of the
figure as “the starting point for a creative pro-
cess that became increasingly improvisatory.”96
The practice of “making large-scale pattern [i.e.,
preparatary] drawings” or cartoons for isolated ele-
ments of a painting was one that Leonardo would
have learned from his master Verrocchio,97 as
indicated by Vasari’s use of the plural form of the
word cartoni when describing Verrocchio’s work-
ing method for individual compositions,98 and as
exemplified by the pricked drawing of A Lily at
Windsor Castle, which forms part of the group
of Leonardo drawings inherited by Melzi, now
in the Royal Library, and which was recently re-
attributed from Leonardo himself to Verrocchio
(Fig. 45).99
Visual analysis and known technical practice
thus strongly suggest that at least one of the “certi
San Girolami” that accompanied Leonardo to
Milan was a drawn study of Verrocchio’s Chigi
bust, which he later transformed into the model
for the cartoon that he used in the Vatican paint-
ing. Just as Raphael would do more than two
decades later, Leonardo must have drawn careful
studies after the bust, which then enabled him to
transform the head freely and to insert it into his
own inventions. Scott Nethersole cautions that
“it is tempting to speculate that [the ‘certi San
Girolami’] were copies of Verrocchio precedents.
Yet it is equally possible that the list records the
contents of his workshop rather later in the 1480s,
in which case these may be preparatory drawings
for [the Vatican Jerome] itself.”100 It is clear from
the repeated appearances of Verrocchio’s Chigi
Bust of a Man in Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi
and his Vatican Penitent St. Jerome that those two
24
 Figure 43 (left)

ANDREA DEL
VERROCCHIO

Detail of Figure 3

Siena, Palazzo
Chigi Saracini

Figure 42 (above) Figure 44 (left)

LEONARDO DA LEONARDO DA
VINCI VINCI

Detail of Figure 39 Infrared image of

detail of Figure
Vatican City, 39, showing the
Pinacoteca Vaticana underdrawing
from the transfer
of the design from
a cartoon

Vatican City,
Pinacoteca Vaticana

25
25
 possibilities––drawn copies after Verrocchio and
drawings that informed Leonardo’s paintings––
were likely to be one and the same.
The connections drawn above show that a
large part of the emotion conveyed by the Vatican
Penitent St. Jerome, upheld as an embodiment of
Leonardo’s absorption in both the formulation of
the moti mentali and the location of the seat of the
soul,101 essentially derives from Verrocchio’s bust,
suggesting again that even the most cerebral of
Leonardo’s artistic pursuits were born of his train-
ing with Verrocchio. While Jerome’s pose cer-
tainly gives form to Leonardo’s investigations on
anatomy and proportion, as well as to his emphasis
of the role of gesture in communicating emotional
states or i moti mentali,102 Jerome’s soulful expres-
sion stems not from Leonardo’s abstract studies of
the soul,103 but from Jerome’s direct predecessor in
the Adoration—the only figure in the entire com-
position to exhibit much emotiveness at all—and
from its predecessor, Verrocchio’s terracotta bust.
It is from the terracotta Bust of a Man, then, that
those moti mentali derive. Martin Clayton advises
caution in ascribing so much of Leonardo’s head
and figure drawing to the study of moti mentali,
maintaining that Leonardo was studying physical
form rather than emotion.104 In corroboration, the
emotion displayed by Leonardo’s Penitent St. Jerome
appears to owe more to his study of sculpture and
form in Verrocchio’s workshop than to his search
for the soul.

Conclusion
The unbroken lineage of Verrocchio’s Bust of a
Man through Leonardo’s Florentine Adoration of the
Magi and his Milanese Penitent St. Jerome attests to
the strength and endurance of Verrocchio’s impact
on his pupil. In the same way that Verrocchio’s
aging up and down of figures planted the seed
Figure 45
for Leonardo’s juxtapositions of “types,” Verroc-
ANDREA DEL chio’s expressive bust likely instigated Leonardo’s
VERROCCHIO
musings on the power of expression to outwardly
A Lily
project the inner workings of the mind.
Windsor Castle, Royal In Verrocchio’s practices, we find a mixing
Library (Royal Collection
Trust © Her Majesty
and melding of the sculptural, painted, and graphic
Queen Elizabeth II, 2019) processes in which he worked, resulting not only

26
26
 in the sculptural conception of his painted figures notes
and the use of sculptural models in his painting, 1. See Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,
but also in specific sensitivities and techniques Sculptors & Architects, Eng. trans. by Gaston du C. de Vere,
10 vols., London, 1912–15, vol. 3 (1912), p. 272 (avail-
such as the transformation of those models—
able online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26860/26860-
essentially the remodeling of their plastic forms— h/26860-h.htm#Page_265).
through drawing. That very technique and the
2. See Laurie Fusco, “The Use of Sculptural Models by Paint-
works it produced were likely Leonardo’s earliest ers in Fifteenth-century Italy,” Art Bulletin, 64, no. 2, 1982,
confrontations with the juxtaposition of types, pp. 175–94.
inspiring what would become a major preoccu- 3. For Verrocchio’s influence on Leonardo’s conception of
pation in his graphic oeuvre. form and space as expressed in his drawings, see Martin
The previous linking of Raphael’s Lille draw- Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and
ings with Leonardo’s head types and techniques Man, 2nd edn., Oxford, 2006, pp. 42–43; for the same phe-
nomenon in his paintings, see Pietro C. Marani, “Tracce ed
rather than with Verrocchio speaks just as strongly
elementi Verrocchiesci nella tarda produzione grafica e pit-
as Leonardo’s own drawings to the impact that torica di Leonardo,” in Steven Bule et al., eds., Verrocchio and
Verrocchio’s training had on the development Late Quattrocento Italian Sculpture, Florence, 1992, pp. 141–52.
of Leonardo’s artistic practice. The expressive- 4. See Elizabeth A. Eisenberg, “Modeling Life: The Trans-
ness conveyed in Verrocchio’s terracotta bust––– formation of Verrocchio’s Sculpture in Late Fifteenth- and
admired by Raphael and placed on a par with Early Sixteenth-century Drawing and Painting,” PhD diss.,
Donatello’s sculptures by Leonardo–––is what New York, New York University, Institute of Fine Arts (in
progress).
scholars recognize as the culmination of Leonar-
do’s studies into the outward expression of the 5. See Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed
architettori, Florence, 1550 (2nd edn. 1568); ed. by Gaetano
innermost soul, tying Leonardo’s invention of i
Milanesi, 9 vols., Florence, 1878–85, vol. 3 (1878), p. 374.
moti mentali to his training under Verrocchio. The
expressiveness, pathos, and elegance conveyed by 6. Compare, for example, the left arm of the Virgin in
Verrocchio’s painting of the Virgin and Child in the
Verrocchio’s terracotta models are such that it is Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (inv. no. 104a; see http://www.
possible to identify more examples of their use by smb-digital.de/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&
Leonardo as inspiration for his work, even when module=collection&objectId=865731&viewType=detailView)
distanced from Verrocchio’s workshop by both with the left arm of the Archangel Raphael in the painting
of Tobias and the Angel from the workshop of Verrocchio, in
decades and miles.105 These observations address the National Gallery, London (inv. no. NG781; see www.
not only the use of sculptural models but also nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings).
something integral about the role of drawing as a 7. Inv. no. 197 F. Silverpoint, with white heightening on
conduit for the transmission and transformation of pink toned paper; 160 x 160 mm; see http://euploos.uffizi.
artistic influence and practice. it/inventario-euploos.php?invn=197+F+di+%C2%ABLoren-
zo+di+Credi%C2%BB.
In 2015 Elizabeth A. Eisenberg completed a Doctoral 8. Inv. no. 124144. Silverpoint, with white heightening, on
Certificate in Curatorial Studies at the Institute of Fine pink toned paper; 120 x 215 mm; see Gigetta Dalli Regoli,
Lorenzo di Credi, Raccolta Pisana di Saggi e Studi, 19, Mi-
Arts, New York University, in conjunction with the
lan, 1966, no. 100, repr.
Metropolitan Museum of Art; she is currently a PhD
candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts under the super- 9. See Vasari (ed. Milanesi 1878–85), vol. 4 (1879), pp. 256–
59; vol. 7 (1881), pp. 141–43; and vol. 8 (1882), p. 117.
vision of Prof. Alexander Nagel.
10. See ibid., vol. 3 (1878), p. 375.

Author’s note
I would like to express my gratitude to Alexander
Nagel, Linda Wolk-Simon, Nadine Orenstein,
and Melanie Holcomb for their support of my
research.
11. Inv. no. FAC 2701 (terracotta, with later painting; 35 x
31 x 23.5 cm); see Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani, ed.,
Il cotto dell’Impruneta: Maestri del Rinascimento e le fornaci di
oggi, exh. cat., Impruneta, Basilica and cloisters of S. Maria,
2009, no. II.9 (text by Giancarlo Gentilini), repr. (in color).
Gentilini’s discovery and publication of the bust in this lit-

27
27
 tle-known exh. cat. seems to have gone widely unnoticed,
apart from a few scholars with very specialized interests.
Andrew Butterfield, whose monograph on the artist, The
Sculptures of Andrea del Verrocchio, New Haven, 1997, pre-
dates Gentilini’s discovery, confirmed the attribution in
conversation with me on 19 April 2018, and his writings
on the bust will appear in the exhibition catalogue accom-
panying the 2019–20 National Gallery of Art exhibition,
Andrea del Verrocchio: Sculptor–Painter of Renaissance Florence.
12. See Impruneta 2009, p. 228.
13. Inv. no. 105 (stucco; 56 x 59 x c. 17 cm); see Herbert Beck
and Michael Maek-Gérard, Liebieghaus-Museum Alter Plas-
tik. Nachantike Grossplastische Bildwerke, II: Italien, Frankreich
und Niederlande, 1380–1530/40, Melsungen, 1981, no. 18,
repr. The connection was made by Gentilini (see Impru-
neta 2009, p. 229). I have not yet examined this bust in
person and note from photographs that the chin appears to
have been truncated.
14. The naturalism of the Chigi head is in contrast to the almost
caricatural quality of a bust previously proposed as the one
mentioned by Vasari, acquired by the late Jan Krugier and his
widow, Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, and now in the
Fondation Jan Krugier, Lausanne (inv. no. FJK 132; terracot-
ta; 38 x 40 x 20 cm); see Pierre-Nicolas Sainte-Fare-Garnot
et al., eds., La Passion du dessin: Collection Jan et Marie-Anne
Krugier-Poniatowski, exh. cat., Paris, Musée Jacquemart-An-
dré, 2002, no. 73, repr. (in color); and www.fondationjankru-
gier.ch/fr/collection/fjk-132-verrochio-andrea. This can now be
recognized as a workshop exercise rather than the original.
15. Inv. no. 370 (tempera on paper, laid down on panel; 40.5
x 27 cm); see Luciano Bellosi, ed., Pittura di luce: Giovanni
di Francesco e l’arte fiorentina di metà Quattrocento, exh. cat.,
Florence, Casa Buonarotti, 1990, no. 32 (mid-1470s),
repr.; and www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/saint-jerome.
16. Oil on panel; 113 x 149 cm; see Dario A. Covi, Andrea del
Verrocchio: Life and Work, Florence, 2005, pp. 211–13, repr.
(as Verrocchio workshop); and David Alan Brown, Leonar-
do da Vinci: Origins of a Genius, New Haven, 1998, p. 25 (as
Verrocchio).
17. 441 x 235 cm; see Bellosi 1990, p. 179 (as Verrocchio, c.
1460). Andrew Butterfield, Luke Syson, and others agree
with this attribution, although Gentilini himself does not.
Umberto Baldini (see The Great Age of Fresco: Giotto to
Pontormo: An Exhibition of Mural Paintings and Monumental
Drawings, exh. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of
Art, 1968, no. 49, repr.) offered alternate attributions for
the fresco, but noted that it was painted almost a secco. This
technique makes sense for Verrocchio, a painter with little
experience of true fresco.
18. Inv. nos. 435 and 434. Both silverpoint on green prepared
paper; 121 x 98 mm and 128 x 105 mm; see Paul Joannides,
The Drawings of Raphael, with a Complete Catalogue, Oxford,
1983, nos. 74–75, both repr.; and idem, Raphael and His
Age: Drawings from the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, exh. cat.,
28
Cleveland Museum of Art, and Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts,
2002, nos. 29–30, both repr. (in color).
19. See ibid., p. 122.
20. While perhaps not a groundbreaking artist, Lorenzo di
Credi was certainly an established one, running a healthy
workshop and sitting on the committee of distinguished
artists who were entrusted with determining the final
placement of the David by Michelangelo (1475–1564).
Raphael would certainly have included him among his
study of Florentine artists, especially as the heir to Ver-
rocchio’s workshop. Tom Henry (written communication
with the author, 6 August 2018) suggested that there was
likely contact between Raphael and Lorenzo di Credi, as
there was between Raphael and “all the most innovative
artists of Florence c. 1504–8.” See Notes 39 and 40 below
for more on the connection between the two artists.
21. Although the proper right eyebrow has been worn down in
the Chigi bust, the distinctive tuft of hair that curls down-
ward halfway along its length and that is captured by Raph-
ael is preserved in the Liebieghaus stucco copy and in the
the painted Jeromes in the Pitti and formerly at Argiano.
22. See Cleveland and Lille 2002, p. 124, under no. 30.
23. See Joannides 1983, p. 151.
24. Paul Joannides (see Cleveland and Lille 2002, p. 124, under
no. 30) compared the Study of the Bust of a Man to an-
other, later metalpoint drawing at Lille in which Raphael
also used white heightening, the Study for St. Bernard of c.
1507–8 (inv. no. 473; metalpoint, with white heightening,
on salmon prepared paper; 123 x 191 mm; see ibid., p. 124,
fig. 30a) for the Madonna del Baldacchino in the Palazzo Pitti,
Florence (inv. no. 1912, no. 165; oil on panel; 279 x 217
cm; see Jürg Meyer zur Capellen, Raphael: The Paintings,
2 vols., Landschut, 2001, vol. 1, no. 40, repr.). From this
comparison, he concluded that because St. Bernard was de-
picted in an interior setting illuminated by a “shaft of light
entering from above,” the Lille bust of a man might also
have been a study for a painted composition set in an inte-
rior. Instead, the comparison suggests that, like it, the Study
for St. Bernard is also based on a sculpted model, a possibility
that requires further investigation.
25. See Cleveland and Lille 2002, p. 126. Sylvia Ferino-Pagden
(“Raphael’s Activity in Perugia as Reflected in a Drawing
in the Ashmolean Museum: Oxford,” Mitteilungen des Kun-
sthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 25, no. 2, 1981, pp. 243
and 248) and John A. Gere and Nicholas Turner (Drawings
by Raphael: From the Royal Library, the Ashmolean, the British
Museum, Chatsworth, and Other English Collections, exh. cat.,
London, British Museum, 1983, p. 38, under no. 19) used
similar descriptors for the related Ashmolean sheet that is
discussed below (see following note).
26. Inv. no. WA1846.10 (formerly P II, 34). Pen and brown
ink, over traces of black chalk; 244 x 203 mm; see Feri-
no-Pagden 1981, figs. 2 and 9; Joannides 1983, no. 74,
28
 repr.; and http://collections.ashmolean.org/object/72175.
27. Conclusively identified by Ferino-Pagden 1981, pp. 239–
40, fig. 8.
28. For Raphael’s possible intentions for this composition, see
ibid., p. 242; and Cleveland and Lille 2002, p. 122, under
no. 29.
29. Damage in the lower right corner of the sheet has not
abraded any definition in the figure’s body, for it was never
there to begin with.
30. See Ferino-Pagden 1981, p. 238.
31. Inv. no. 16.30ab (oil and gold on panel; main panel 172.4
x 172.4 cm); see Ferino-Pagden 1981, figs. 1, 2, and 6; and
www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search.
32. Inv. no. NG593 (oil on panel; 71.1 x 49.5 cm); see Fe-
rino-Pagden 1981, p. 238; and www.nationalgallery.org.uk/
paintings/lorenzo-di-credi-the-virgin-and-child.
33. Inv. no. 1940.015.000 (tempera and oil on panel; 60.6 cm x
48.7 cm); see http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm/search/collection.
34. Inv. no. 0113 verso. Pen and brown ink, over traces of
black chalk, on paper toned pale pink; 198 x 154 mm;
see James Byam Shaw, Drawings by Old Masters at Christ
Church, Oxford, 2 vols., Oxford, 1976, no. 363, both sides
repr.; and Catherine Whistler and Ben Thomas, eds., Raph-
ael: The Drawings, exh. cat., Oxford, Ashmolean Museum,
2017, no. 18, repr. (in color).
35. See Joannides 1983, p. 70, under no. 19; and Francis
Ames-Lewis, The Draftsman Raphael, New Haven, 1985, p.
613.
36. See Linda Wolk-Simon, “Raphael at the Metropolitan:
The Colonna Altarpiece,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulle-
tin, 2006, pp. 15–16, and 18.
37. See Ferino-Pagden 1981, p. 248.
38. See Arnold Victor Coonin, “The Interaction of Painting
and Sculpture in the Art of Perugino,” Artibus et Historiae,
24, no. 47, 2003, pp. 103–20 (available online at https://
doi.org/10.2307/1483762).
39. See Luisa Becherucci, “Raphael and Painting,” in Mario
Salmi, ed., The Complete Work of Raphael, New York, 1969,
pp. 12–15, 25, and 30 (with previous literature). Konrad
Oberhuber (“The Colonna Altarpiece in the Metropoli-
tan Museum and Problems of the Early Style of Raphael,”
Metropolitan Museum Journal, 12, 1977, pp. 55–91) dated the
Colonna Altarpiece even earlier (1502) and Raphael’s offi-
cial move to Florence later than 1504, stating that “what-
ever Tuscan influences there may be” the altarpiece origi-
nated from a different visit to the city (p. 60). By contrast,
Pierluigi de Vecchi (“The Coronation of the Virgin in the
Vatican Pinacoteca and Raphael’s Activity between 1502
and 1504,” in James Beck, ed., Raphael before Rome, Studies
in the History of Art, 17, 1986, p. 80) suggested that the
29
language of a 1504 letter from Giovanna Feltria della Rov-
ere (1463–1513), recommending Raphael to Pier Soderini
(1450–1522), implies that Raphael was by that date already
familiar with the city and its artists.
40. See Anne H. van Buren, “The Canonical Office in Renais-
sance Painting: Raphael’s Madonna at Nones,” Art Bulletin,
57, no. 1, 1975, pp. 41–52.
41. See Benvenuto Cellini, La vita, i trattati, i discorsi; ed. by
Pietro Scarpellini, [n.p.], 1987, p. 19.
42. According to Vasari (ed. Milanesi 1878–85, vol. 4 [1879],
pp. 319–20), this is exactly what brought Raphael to Flor-
ence.
43. See Vasari (ed. Milanesi 1878–85, vol. 4 [1879], pp. 564–
65): “tutti i disegni, rilievi, statue, e masserizie dell’arte...i diseg-
ni, pitture, sculture, ed altre cose dell’arte” (“all the drawings,
reliefs, statues, and household goods of art…the drawings,
paintings, sculpture, and other things of art”).
44. See Covi 2005, pp. 279–80, Appendix II, doc. 20; and pp.
285–87 (esp. p. 286), Appendix II, doc. 27.
45. See the many portrait drawings by Lorenzo di Credi in
Gigetta dalli Regoli et al., eds., Verrocchio, Lorenzo di Credi,
Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, Paris and Milan, 2003.
46. Inv. no. 8358 (tempera and oil on panel; 180 x 182 cm); see
Brown 1998, repr. (in color); and www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/
verrocchio-leonardo-baptism-of-christ.
47. Pietro C. Marani (Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings,
New York, 2000, p. 144) dated Leonardo’s involvement as
late as 1480, when Verrocchio was overwhelmingly busy
with other commissions and by which time Leonardo had
already built a trustworthy reputation as a painter through
his work on the altarpiece for the chapel of S. Bernardo,
Palazzo Vecchio (commissioned on 10 January 1478, al-
though never finished). This late date makes sense of Vasa-
ri’s apocryphal tale of Verrocchio laying down his brush in
despair on witnessing Leonardo’s painting prowess when
working on the Baptism. By the end of the 1470s, Ver-
rocchio was so absorbed in sculptural commissions that he
essentially had to abandon painting.
48. Jill Dunkerton (“Leonardo in Verrocchio’s Workshop:
Re-examining the Technical Evidence,” National Gallery
Technical Bulletin, 32, 2011, pp. 4–31) dated Leonardo’s in-
volvement between 1474 (the generally accepted date of
his Annunciation) and 1476 (the last official record of Leon-
ardo’s association with Verrocchio).
49. See Brown 1998, p. 136.
50. The Virgin and Child with Two Angels in the National Gal-
lery, London (inv. no. NG2508; tempera on panel; 69.2 x
49.8 cm; see www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/andrea-del-
verrocchio-the-virgin-and-child-with-two-angels), is dated 1467–
69 and precedes the Baptism of Christ.
51. After I made the connection between the Baptist and the
29
 Chigi bust, my research revealed that Richard David Ser-
ros (“The Verrocchio Workshop: Techniques, Produc-
tion, and Influences,” PhD diss., Santa Barbara, University
of California, 1999, p. 459, Appendix A) had previous-
ly attempted to connect the Baptist (as well as the vari-
ous Jeromes painted in the Verrocchio workshop) to the
Liebieghaus bust. He was as yet unaware of Gentilini’s dis-
covery of the Chigi bust and therefore that the one in the
Liebieghaus was a copy. His misattribution results in his
misdating the Liebieghaus bust by thirty years.
52. Silver and blue smalt, mounted on wood support; 31.5
cm x 42 cm; see Butterfield 2007, no. 16, figs. 129, 134,
and 136–51; and Gary M. Radke, “Leonardo, Student of
Sculpture,” in idem et al., Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of
Sculpture, exh. cat., Atlanta, High Museum of Art, and Los
Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009–10, pl. 21 and figs.
19–32 (fig. 24 in color).
53. Inv. no. D 642. Pen and brown ink, with brown wash, on
paper toned pink; 285 x 201 mm; see Carmen Bambach,
ed., Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman, exh. cat., New
York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003, no. 8, repr. (in
color); and www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/13626.
54. The drawing is discussed by Carmen Bambach (see New
York 2003, no. 8), by Patricia Lee Rubin (see eadem and
Alison Wright, Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s,
exh. cat., London, National Gallery, 1999–2000, no. 19,
both sides repr. [in color]), and by Jill Dunkerton and Luke
Syson (“In Search of Verrocchio the Painter: The Cleaning
and Examination of The Virgin and Child with Two Angels,”
National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 31, 2010, pp. 4–41), but
not in regard to the observations and ideas advanced here.
55. Whether the artist is Verrocchio or Lorenzo di Credi is
irrelevant to my argument, since in either case the draw-
ing was made under Verrocchio’s aegis in the mode of his
workshop practice.
56. This idea emerged through conversation with Denise Al-
len, 2018. Marani (1992, p. 150) confirms as much.
57. See W. R. Valentiner, “Leonardo as Verrocchio’s Co-
worker,” Art Bulletin, 12, no. 1, 1930. p. 64.
58. On the juxtaposition of contrasting types in Leonardo’s
drawings and possible connections with ancient and con-
temporary theories about human physiognomy, see Mi-
chael W. Kwakkelstein, Leonardo da Vinci as a Physiognomist:
Theory and Drawing Practice, 2nd edn., Leiden, 2014 (rev.
edn. of Eng. trans., Leiden, 1994, of Leonardo da Vinci en
de fysionomie, Rotterdam, 1988); and the current exhibition
curated by the same author, Leonardo da Vinci: The Language
of Faces, exh. cat., Haarlem, Teylers Museum, 2018–19.
59. Inv. no. RCIN 912490. Pen and brown ink, with brown
wash; 163 x 143 mm; see Martin Clayton, Leonardo da Vinci:
The Divine and the Grotesque, exh. cat., Edinburgh, Queen’s
Gallery, Holyroodhouse, and London, Queen’s Gallery,
Buckingham Palace, 2002–3, no. 27, repr. (in color); idem,
30
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing, exh. cat., Birming-
ham, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, and elsewhere,
2018, no. 49, repr. (in color); Haarlem 2018–19, no. 19,
repr. (in color); and www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collec-
tion/912490.
60. Inv. no. 1956.2.1 (marble; 55.9 x 36.7 cm); see www.nga.
gov/collection/art-object-page.43513.
61. Inv. no. 1895,0915.474. Silverpoint on cream prepared
paper; 287 x 212 mm; see Hugo Chapman and Mar-
zia Faietti, Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance
Drawings, exh. cat., London, British Museum, and Flor-
ence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, 2010, no.
50 (text by Hugo Chapman), repr. (in color); and www.
britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online.
62. Michael Kwakkelstein (see Haarlem 2018–19, p. 115, un-
der nos. 4–6) reviews the influence that ancient coins, such
as those featuring Emperor Galba, would have had on Ver-
rocchio and Leonardo. For the influence of other antique
coin and medal motifs, see ibid., nos. 12–17 and 35–36;
Kwakkelstein (see ibid., p. 117) also touched on Leonardo’s
interest in recording the aging process but stopped short of
analyzing his active role in it.
63. Clayton (see Edinburgh and London 2002–3, pp. 51–52) de-
scribed them as “a youth with a straight nose, slightly round-
ed chin and open expression, and a mature man with an
aquiline nose, prominent chin, and beetling brow.”
64. Inv. no. 449 E. Pen and brown ink; 105 x 78 mm; see
Carlo Pedretti and Gigetta Dalli Regoli, I disegni di Leonardo
da Vinci e della sua cerchia nel Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe della
Galleria degli Uffizi a Firenze, Florence, 1985, no. 6r, repr.
(in color).
65. Inv. no. 446 E. Pen and brown ink; 202 x 266 mm; see
ibid., no. 7r, repr. (in color).
66. Inv. no. 423 E. Red chalk; 209 x 150 mm; see ibid., no.
11r, repr. (in color).
67. Inv. no. 1775. Black chalk, with touches of red chalk; 191
x 188 mm; see London and Florence 2010, no. 10, repr.
(in color); Haarlem 2018–19, no. 40, repr. (in color); and
www.mfab.hu/artworks/study-of-two-warriors-heads-for-the-bat-
tle-of-anghiari.
68. Inv. no. Sculture 472 (polychromed terracotta; 135 x 150
cm); see Butterfield 1997, no. 11 (with previous literature),
fig. 104 (in color); and Haarlem 2018–19, no. 40, detail
repr. (in color).
69. See Martin Clayton in Edinburgh and London 2002–3, p.
120.
70. Inv. no. 1774. Red chalk, on paper toned pale pink; 226
x 186 cm; see London and Florence 2010, no. 12, repr.
(in color); Haarlem 2018–19, no. 41, repr. (in color); and
www.mfab.hu/artworks/recto-study-for-the-head-of-a-soldier-in-
the-battle-of-anghiari.
30
 71. Inv. no. RCIN 912500. Black chalk; 253 x 182 mm; see
Edinburgh and London 2002–3, no. 25 repr. (in color); Bir-
mingham and elsewhere 2018, no. 200, repr. (in color); and
www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/ 912500.
72. Inv. no. RCIN 912726. Red chalk; 275 x 190 mm; see
Birmingham and elsewhere 2018, no. 2, repr. (in color);
Anna Reynolds et al., Portrait of the Artist, exh. cat., Lon-
don, Queen’s Gallery, 2016, no. 96 (text by Martin Clay-
ton), repr. (in color); and www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/
collection/912726.
73. The scientific term for the drooping of the nose with age is
ptosis.
74. Inv. no. RCIN 912276(r). Pen and brown ink; 405 x 290
mm; see Luke Syson, ed., Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the
Court of Milan, exh. cat., London, National Gallery, 2011,
no. 37 (text by Per Rumberg), repr. (in color); and www.
rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/912276.
75. See Edinburgh and London 2002–3, p. 17, under no. 1 (text
by Martin Clayton).
76. Inv. no. RCIN 912502. Red chalk, with touches of white
chalk, on paper toned pink; 183 x 136 mm; see Edinburgh
and London 2002–3, no. 22, repr. (in color); Haarlem
2018–19, no. 10, repr. (in color); and www.rct.uk/collection/
search#/1/collection/912502
77. See Edinburgh and London 2002–3, p. 79.
78. See Jean Paul Richter, ed., The Literary Works of Leonardo
da Vinci, 2d edn. (rev. and enlarged by Jean Paul Richter
and Irma Richter), 2 vols., London and New York, 1939,
no. 19: “If the painter wishes to see beauties that charm
him, it lies in his power to create them; and if he wishes to
see monstrosities that are frightful, buffoonish or ridiculous,
or pitiable, he can be lord and god thereof,” and no. 13:
“Simple forms are finite, but the works which our hands
perform at the command of the eye are infinite.”
79. Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Codex Atlanticus, fol. 888r
(324r); see Il Codice Atlantico della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di
Milano: Leonardo da Vinci, nella trascrizione critica di Augusto
Marinoni, 12 vols., Florence, 1980, vol. 10, p. 126; Jean
Paul Richter, ed. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols.,
New York, 1970, vol. 1, pp 387–88, no. 680; and analyz-
ed by Martin Kemp in idem with Jane Roberts, Leonardo
da Vinci, exh. cat., London, Hayward Gallery, 1989, pp.
42–48.
80. See Kemp 2006, p. 56: “We have also seen ‘certain St Je-
romes’ in his early list of works, though these are likely to
have been preparatory drawings rather than paintings.”
81. See David Alan Brown, “The Apprentice,” in Claire J. Fara-
go, ed., An Overview of Leonardo’s Career and Projects until
c. 1500, Leonardo da Vinci: Selected Scholarship, 2, New
York, 1999, p. 338: “The list of works the artist took to Mi-
lan accordingly included ‘una storia di Passione fatta in forma’
(meaning a relief or mold);” and Richter (ed.) 1970, vol. 1,
31
p. 388, no. 680, and vol. 2, p. 326, no. 1340.
82. See Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Scritti sulle arti, ed. by Rob-
erto Paolo Ciardi, Raccolta pisana di saggi e studi, 33–34, 2
vols., Florence, 1973–74, vol. 1, p. 153 (cited by Gentilini
in Impruneta 2009, p. 229).
83. Inv. no. F.274 Inf 8. Red chalk; 203 x 130 mm; see Haar-
lem 2018–19, p. 115, fig. 3 (in color).
84. Kwakkelstein (see ibid.; and idem 2014 pp. 108–9, fig.
85, n. 277 for previous literature) reads the inscription as
cavata de relevo, which he interprets as “drafted from re-
lief,” and he assumes that the sculpture copied was a clay
model by Leonardo himself. Bambach (see New York
2003, p. 641, under no. 120), on the other hand, reads
the inscriptions as prima cavata in...relevo (i.e., “first draft in
relief”) and is more circumspect about its meaning.
85. Inv. no. 40337 (oil and tempera on panel; 102.8 x 73.5 cm);
see Marani 2000, pp. 95–101, pl. 97 (in color); New York
2003, no. 46, repr. (in color); and https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Saint_Jerome_in_the_Wilderness_(Leonardo).jpg.
86. Inv. no. 1594 (charcoal, watercolor, ink, oil, and tempera
on panel; 244 x 240 cm); see Marani 2000, p. 114, repr. (in
color); and www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/adoration-of-the-magi-
13fb2318-44ca-4a84-a36d-e41dd12e8181.
87. See, for example, St. Jerome, from the circle of Leonardo
da Vinci, c. 1490, in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle
(inv. no. RCIN 912571; metalpoint and brush and black
ink, with white heightening, on gray prepared paper; see
London 2011, no. 28 [text by Scott Nethersole], repr.
[in color]); and another example in the Ambrosiana, Mi-
lan (inv. no. Cod. F 263 inf. 96; silverpoint, with white
heightening, on blue prepared paper; 170 x 130 mm; see
Giulio Bora and Maria Teresa Binaghi Olivari, eds., Disegni
e dipinti Leonardeschi dalle collezioni milanesi, exh. cat., Milan,
Palazzo Reale di Milano, 1987, no. 66, repr. [in color]).
88. Luke Syson and Rachel Billinge (“Leonardo da Vinci’s Use
of Underdrawing in the Virgin of the Rocks in the National
Gallery and St. Jerome in the Vatican,” Burlington Magazine,
147, no. 1228, 2005, pp. 457–58) dated both works to c.
1491–93. Wilhelm Suida (Leonardo und sein Kreis, Munich
1929, pp. 80–82) dated the Vatican St. Jerome to c. 1490;
Pietro C. Marani (“I committenti di Leonardo al tempo
di Ludovico il Moro, 1483–1499,” in M.T. Fiorio and V.
Terraroli, eds., Lombardia Rinascimentale: Arte e architettura,
Milan, 2003, pp. 164–87) to c. 1481–85; and Bambach
(New York 2003, pp. 375–76, under no. 46) to sometime
between 1481 and 1485. All agree that the painting is likely
to belong to Leonardo’s Milanese period.
89. See Note 3 above.
90. This painted figure has been identified as based on a lost
Verrocchio model close to his painted Jeromes by count-
less scholars, including Marani (2000, pp. 95–96); Syson
and Billinge (2005, p. 455, n. 18); Carmen Bambach (New
31
 York 2003, p. 375, under no. 46); Michael W. Kwakkel-
stein (“Leonardo da Vinci’s Recurrent Use of Patterns of
Individual Limbs, Stock Poses, and Facial Stereotypes,” in
Michael W. Kwakkelstein and Lorenza Melli, eds., From
Pattern to Nature in Italian Renaissance Drawings: Pisanello to
Leonardo: Proceedings of the International Conference Held at
the Dutch University Institute for Art History, Florence, 6–7
May 2011, Florence, 2012, pp. 183–4); and Scott Neth-
ersole (London 2011, p. 140, under no. 20). It is interest-
ing to note that, executed at a time when the two artists
were colleagues rather than engaged in a teacher–student
relationship, Leonardo’s painting was first influenced by
Verrocchio’s sculpture and then, in turn, influenced the
composition of Verrocchio’s sculpted Entombment, former-
ly in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin, and currently
undergoing conservation at the Pushkin State Museum
of Fine Arts, Moscow (see Butterfield 1997, no. 24, pl.
203; and www.museumconservation.ru/data/donatello/andrea_
verrokko_polozhenie_vo_grob/index.php?lang=en).
91. Marble; h. 193 cm; see Gary M. Radke, “Leonardo, Stu-
dent of Sculpture,” in Atlanta and Los Angeles 2009–10,
pp. 15–16, and p. 19, pl. 2 (in color).
92. Inv. no. Sculture 361 (marble; 209 x 67 cm); see John
Pope-Hennessy, Donatello: Sculptor, New York and Lon-
don, 1993, pp. 44–48 (esp. p. 42, fig. 32 [in color]).
93. The open-mouthed type is also found in the Fondation Jan
Krugier terracotta workshop exercise (see Note 14), whose
clumsiness perhaps suggests that it was modeled after the
Argiano painting, rather than the other way around.
94. See Notes 14 and 93 above.
95. See Syson and Billinge 2005, p. 459.
96. See ibid., p. 460. The use of cartoons is confirmed in the
head and foot. It is likely that they were used in the body, as
well, but new infrared imaging was undertaken only on the
top and bottom of the panel. Where Bambach (New York
2003, pp. 370–79 [esp. p. 374], under no. 46) noted the
appearance of spolvero dots, suggestive of a pricked cartoon,
Syson and Billinge have interpreted careful, broken lines as
suggesting another mode of mechanical transfer.
97. See Syson and Billinge 2005, p. 459.
98. See Vasari (ed. Milanesi 1878–79, vol. 3 [1878], p. 363):
“...fece i cartoni d’una battaglia d’ignudi disegnati di penna molto
bene, per farli di colore in una facciata” (“He made the cartoons
for a battle of nude figures, very well drawn with the pen,
to be afterwards painted in colors on a wall”).
99. Inv. no. RCIN 912418. Stylus, leadpoint, pen and brown
ink, with brown and ocher wash and rubbing, and opaque
white heightening (partially oxidized); pricked for transfer;
314 x 177 mm; see London 1999, no. 24 (as Leonardo da
Vinci; text by Patricia Rubin), repr. (in color); Birming-
32
ham and elsewhere 2018, no. 3 (as attributed to Andrea
del Verrocchio), repr. (in color); and www.rct.uk/collection/
search#/1/collection/912418. The reattribution published
in Martin Clayton’s 2018 exhibition catalogue and record-
ed on the website of the Royal Collection Trust was re-
layed to me by him in conversation the same year. Patricia
Rubin had previously maintained the popular attribution
to Leonardo da Vinci, while admitting that the “combina-
tion of solidity and ornament corresponds to Verrocchio’s
sensibility” and “the perspective exercises, done in stylus
with the sheet turned on its side, also correspond to Ver-
rocchio’s as much as Leonardo’s interests.”
100. See London 2011, p. 140, under no. 20 (text by Scott
Nethersole).
101. Carmen Bambach (see New York 2003, p. 372, under no.
25) stated that Jerome’s yearning expression is the picto-
rial equivalent of Leonardo’s attempts to locate inside the
cranium the senso comune, defined as the soul; Scott Neth-
ersole (see London 2011, p. 140, under no. 20) saw in the
painting the “theme of the immortal soul.”
102. See Richter (ed.) 1939, vol. 1, no. 593, p. 344: “A picture
or representation of human figures ought to be done in
such a way as that the spectator may easily recognise, by
means of their attitudes, the purpose in their minds.”
103. A parallel seems to have been drawn between the multi-
ple records of Leonardo’s anatomical attempts to map the
ventricles of the brain and its processing center, the sen-
so comune, as seen in two drawings at Windsor (inv. nos.
RCIN 912603 and RCIN 919058; see www.rct.uk/collec-
tion/search#/1/collection/912603 and www.rct.uk/collection/
search#/1/collection/919058), with his one documented
reference to the soul’s location within the senso comune and
its power over the body, in a third sheet in the same collec-
tion, with notes on the senses and the nervous system (inv.
no. RCIN 919019[r]; see www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/
collection/919019). It appears that this equation of brain
with soul has been extended to Leonardo’s injunction to
convey painted figures’ emotional states through gesture
and facial expression, thereby arriving at the St. Jerome as
an exemplar of “i moti dell’anima.” I believe that the phrase
does not appear in his Trattato, however, where Leonardo
used phrases such as la passione dell’animo suo or l’intenzione
del loro animo, interpreted as “spirit” or “mind” in the com-
mon translations.
104. See Clayton in London 2002, pp. 68–73. Michael W.
Kwakkelstein (2014, chap. 2) suggested the existence of
a treatise on moti mentali, which Clayton disputes; see also
Michael W. Kwakkelstein, “The Face as the Mirror of the
Soul: Leonardo and the Moral Significance of Beauty and
Ugliness,” in Haarlem 2018–19, pp. 32–51.
105. The study will be continued in my forthcoming disserta-
tion and a future article, both currently in progress.
32