The name of Verocchio is best known to the world through the equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni. When this great Condottiere, the last surviving general trained by Braccio da Montone, died in 1475, he bequeathed a large portion of his wealth to Venice, on condition that his statue on horseback should be erected in the Piazza di S. Marco. Colleoni, having long held the bâton of the Republic, desired that after death his portrait, in his habit as he lived, should continue to look down on the scene of his old splendour. By an ingenious quibble the Senators adhered to the letter of his will without infringing a law that forbade them to charge the square of S. Mark with monuments. They ruled that the piazza in front of the Scuola di S. Marco, better known as the Campo di S. Zanipolo, might be chosen as the site of Colleoni's statue, and to Andrea Verocchio was given the commission for its erection. Andrea died in 1488 before the model for the horse was finished. The work was completed, and the pedestal was supplied by Alessandro Leopardi. To Verocchio, profiting by the example of Donatello's "Gattamelata," must be assigned the general conception of this statue; but the breath of life that animates both horse and rider, the richness of detail that enhances the massive grandeur of the group, and the fiery spirit of its style of execution were due to the Venetian genius of Leopardi. Verocchio alone produced nothing so truly magnificent. This joint creation of Florentine science and Venetian fervour is one of the most precious monuments of the Renaissance. From it we learn what the men who fought the bloodless battles of the commonwealths, and who aspired to principality, were like. "He was tall," writes a biographer of Colleoni,[94] "of erect and well-knit figure, and of well-proportioned limbs. His complexion tended rather to brown, marked withal by bright and sanguine flesh-tints. He had black eyes; their brilliancy was vivid, their gaze terrible and penetrating. In the outline of his nose and in all his features he displayed a manly nobleness combined with goodness and prudence." Better phrases cannot be chosen to describe his statue.