Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni Site Features

Colleoni sits rigid and alert in the saddle, gathering the reins as if about to spur his horse into a charge -- a marked contrast to the calmer poise of Donatello's Gattamelata, which directly inspired it. The horse's raised foreleg and turned head, and the rider's braced stance in the stirrups, give the whole group a tension that set a new standard for equestrian sculpture in Renaissance Italy.

Colleoni himself is rendered in the armor of a Renaissance captain, his face set and severe. The bronze's surface still shows the sharp, realistic musculature of the horse that contemporaries praised as a technical achievement in its own right.