Description
This groundbreaking reexamination of the beginnings of Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) life as an artist suggests new candidates for his earliest surviving work and revises our understanding of his role in the studio of his teacher, Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488). Anchoring this analysis are important yet often overlooked considerations about Verrocchio’s studio-specifically, the collaborative nature of most works that emerged from it and the probability that Leonardo must initially have learned to paint in tempera, as his teacher did. The book searches for the young artist’s hand among the tempera works from Verrocchio’s studio and proposes new criteria for judging Verrocchio’s own painting style.