not do without him; by offering him greater emoluments, the Venetians induced him to return in 1453, and in 1455 he was appointed captain-general of the Republic of Venice for life. Although he occasionally fought on his own account when Venice was at peace, he remained at the disposal of the republic in time of war until his death. Retirement He set his residence in the castle of Malpaga, which he had bought in 1465 and restored in the years following. Although he often changed sides, no act of treachery is imputed to him, nor did he subject the territories he passed through to the rapine and robbery practised by other soldiers of fortune. When not fighting, he devoted his time to introducing agricultural improvements on the vast estates which the Venetians had granted him, and to charitable works. At his death in 1475, at Malpaga, he left a large sum to the republic for the Turkish war, with a request that an equestrian statue of himself should be erected in the Piazza San Marco. The statue was modelled by Andrea del Verrocchio and cast in bronze after his death by Alessandro Leopardi, but, as no monument was permitted in the piazza, it was placed near the Scuola Grande of St Mark outside the Church of SS Giovanni e Paolo. Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni In 1930 the Italian Regia Marina launched a cruiser of the Condottieri class named after Bartolomeo Colleoni. References Footnotes External links Page at the Italian history chronology website 1475 deaths People from the Province of Bergamo 15th-century condottieri 1400 births Republic of Venice generals