Barolomeo Colleoni Monument

Sculpted by Andrea del Verrocchio and cast by Alessandro Leopardi, the late fifteenth-century equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, which overlooks Venice's Campo di Zanipolo, is one of Italy's most celebrated sculptures.

Inspired by such Roman imperial monuments as the second century AD equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome's Piazza del Campidoglio, the Colleoni Monument fostered a revival of the lost art of bronze casting on a grand scale during the Renaissance, a technology that swept through Europe by the end of the seventeenth century.However, centuries of exposure to Venice's corrosive marine environment and airborne industrial pollutants had begun to erase artistic details and weakened the structural integrity of the sculpture.

When the statue was included on the World Monuments Fund's 1996 List of 100 Most Endangered Sites, WMF, in partnership with Venice's Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici, embarked on an extraordinary restoration project, completed in June 2006.

This book includes essays by Andrew Butterfield, Francesca Bewer, Henry Lie and Giovanni & Lorenzo Morigi.