ABSTRACT
The main preceptors of the Florentine school, the models to be followed, consciously or unconsciously, were Donatello in sculpture, Brunelleschi as an architect and Masaccio in painting. The Florentine economy was sufficiently affluent to ensure the conditions in which the company of artists would flourish. A firm base for the new prosperity and the flowering of artistic endeavour was provided by the twenty-one guilds of craftsmen. During the central part of the Medici period, the genial, cultured figure of Leon Battista Alberti exercised a great deal of influence over his fellow architects and artists. Another artist of indomitable energy who practised as a painter, sculptor and architect was Andrea del Verrocchio. Most of Verrocchio’s best work was done for the Medici family. For them he designed the tombs of Cosimo in 1467 and that of Riario Piero and Lanfredini Giovanni in 1472 which has some excellent ornamental detail in a restrained manner.
