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.