Constantine. Ambitious Renaissance leaders recognized
the symbolic force of such a monument, seeing in the
rider’s control over the horse a symbol of their own power
over their subjects or enemies (see EQUITATION). By the
15th century, painted equestrian portraits were appearing
on funeral monuments (for example, UCCELLO’s repainted
fresco of the English condottiere Sir John Hawkwood in
Florence cathedral, 1436) and elsewhere (for example, the
fresco of Guidoriccio da Fogliano in Siena’s Palazzo Pub-
blico).
The bronze equestrian statue of GATTAMELATA(Piazza
del Santo, Padua) by DONATELLO, made in the mid-1440s
and erected in 1453, proved to be the first durable statue
of its kind since classical antiquity. The stability of the
horse is ensured by its having three feet on the base and
the tip of the fourth hoof resting on a small sphere. VER-
ROCCHIOin the later Colleoni statue in Venice (1485–88)
shows the pacing horse with one forefoot raised. More
taxing was the practical problem of sculpting a life-size
rearing horse; sketches for a proposed monument to
Francesco (I) SFORZA by Antonio POLLAIUOLO and
LEONARDO DA VINCIshow attempts at solving the difficulty.
Leonardo’s work got as far as a clay model of the over-
life-size horse (1493) but it was never cast and was
wrecked in the French invasion of Milan.
It was nearly a century before the next executed com-
mission for a large-scale equestrian monument: the 1587
commission to GIAMBOLOGNAfor a statue of Duke Cosimo
I de’ Medici. In 1594 the English traveler Fynes MORYSON
saw the statue in the sculptor’s workshop before it was
erected (1595) in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence; he
was particularly impressed by its size (over 14ft high) and
the fact that the horse was shown walking naturally, its
weight balanced on just one forefoot and one hindfoot.
Giambologna also made an equestrian statue of Henry IV
of France, erected in 1611 on the Pont Neuf, Paris, and
began a statue of Grand Duke Ferdinand I (1608; Piazza
dell’ Annunziata, Florence) that was completed by his
pupil Pietro Tacca in 1608. Tacca was responsible too for
a statue of Philip III of Spain (1616; Plaza Mayor, Madrid),
and for the statue of Philip IV of Spain (1642), in which
he solved the problem of representing a rearing horse.
England lagged behind Continental Europe in displaying
sculpted portraits of its rulers in public places; a scheme
to depict James I and Prince Charles on horseback was
proposed in 1621, but the first equestrian statue to be re-
alized in that country was the one by the Frenchman Hu-
bert Le Sueur (c. 1595–c. 1650) of Charles I (1633; now
in Trafalgar Square, London).
Further reading: Maureen Barraclough et al, Sover-
eigns and Soldiers on Horseback: Bronze Equestrian Monu-
ments from Ancient Rome to Our Times (Ipswich, Mass.:
Ipswich Press, 1999).
Equicola, Mario (c. 1470–1525) Italian humanist
courtier and diplomat
Born at Alvito, Calabria, Equicola was mainly associated
with the house of ESTE. As early as 1505 he composed a
treatise on the phrase “Nec spe nec metu” (neither in hope
nor in fear), which was Isabella d’Este’s favorite motto,
and in 1519 she appointed him her secretary. In this ca-
pacity he traveled with her on a pilgrimage to the shrine
of St. Mary Magdalene at Ste.-Baume in Provence; his ac-
count of the trip still survives. His letters give valuable in-
sights into the private lives of Isabella and her extensive
family connections. He became involved in the quarrel be-
tween Isabella and her son Federico d’Este, and died in
Mantua. His De natura de amore (1525) shows the influ-
ence of FICINO’s theories of Platonic love.equitation Medieval pageants favored horsemanship as a
display of physical and military prowess. By contrast, Re-
naissance horsemanship developed into an art form, em-
phasizing the gracefulness, resourcefulness, and mutual
discipline of horse and rider. A microcosm of Renaissance
order, horsemanship was an emblem of the harmony of art
and nature.
The idea of equitation as an art had a classical source
in Xenophon, who in the early 4th century BCErecom-
mended the harmonized interaction of animal and rider in
terms of “gentling” or training the horse through instruc-
tion and exercises. The revival of equitation began in
Naples, when Federico Grisone established the first pur-
pose-built riding school. His influential and widely trans-
lated book Gli ordini di cavalcare (The principles of
horsemanship, 1550) initiated the education of European
nobility in equitation. In England, Thomas BLUNDEVILLE
translated this work (1560) and dedicated it to the earl of
Leicester, whom Queen Elizabeth had appointed her Mas-
ter of the Horse. Early the next century the Continental
fascination with equitation touched Henry, Prince of
Wales, who enlisted French masters to teach him the art
and ordered the building of a dedicated “riding house” in
London, the first in England (1607–09).
Grisone’s pupils dispersed across Europe as riding
masters to kings and nobles, and continued his work of
infusing the art of riding with characteristic Renaissance
and humanist concerns. The noble horseman drew on the
art of eloquence to instruct the horse, thereby shaping and
refining its character; to please audiences, the riding mas-
ters also included music, especially during the exercise of
the “courbette.” (The horses of the Medici stables in Flo-
rence were particularly renowned for performances of this
kind.) Each element of the horseman’s art was developed
in such a way that it honored the mutuality of the perfor-
mance, ennobling with willed harmony and artistic skill
the natural state of animal–human interaction.
The Renaissance art of equitation perhaps culminated
in Antoine de Pluvinel’s work in France. Pluvinel, a grad-eeqquuiittaattiioonn 1 16655