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In 1477, after a contest in which he and three other sculptors submitted models, Verrocchio undertook to carve the marble cenotaph for Cardinal Niccolò Forteguerri for Pistoia Cathedral. His relationship with the authorities was difficult and may have caused the lengthy delays that resulted in the monument remaining unfinished at his death.
The Forteguerri cenotaph displays the only extant monumental figure designed by Verrocchio in marble. The work is now much altered, yet its original appearance can be deduced from a terracotta model (Victoria and Albert Museum, London), probably by Verrocchio, for the complete monument. This presents Christ in majesty within a mandorla, carried by four angels, in the upper part, and, below, Niccolò Forteguerri, surrounded by a triangle of the three cardinal virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity. Its iconographical and formal schema are traditional.
In the completed monument, seven of the nine figures exhibited in the lunette framework - Christ, the four angels supporting the mandorla, and Faith and Hope - are recorded as having been carved in Verrocchio's workshop. The work was completed by Lorenzetto and Giovanni Francesco Rustici and then in 1753 disastrously given a Baroque character by Gaetano Masoni.
Niccolò Forteguerri (1419-1473), nephew of Pope Pius II, was a legate, general and cardinal of the Roman Catholic church. Upon his death, his remains were interred with another monument in the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome; but his posthumous patronage and endowments, which included the Biblioteca Forteguerriana and an allied school in Pistoia, prompted his town to honor his memory with a local monument.
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