The Exchange of Models in Florentine Workshops of the Quattrocento: A Sheet from the 'Verrocchio Sketchbook'

Abstract

nineteenth century, twenty-nine pages are known. On them are sketches brought to various stages of completion, mostly copies of sculptures and drawings, and many notes that do not bear any direct relationship to the images. The text and drawings appear to belong to different phases of use, although they were probably executed during the same years in the same workshop: it seems most likely that the sheets, already partially covered with sketches of various sorts, were later made use of for the writing of records, accounts and notes. The 'Sketchbook', which bears the date '1487' on three of its sheets (Chantilly, Musee Conde, inv. 21, 22, 23) and '1488' on another (Paris, Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris, inv. 374), was executed in the workshop of the sculptor Francesco di Simone Ferrucci from Fiesole, as has been largely agreed since the studies of Giovanni Morelli.1