Andrea del Verrocchio
Lorenzo was born in Florence in 1456 or 1459 to a goldsmith named Andrea d' Oderigo. He was apprenticed to Andrea del Verrocchio, probably in the mid-1470s. He eventually became Verrocchio's primary assistant and inherited his workshop on Verrocchio's death in 1488. On Verrocchio's behalf he completed the famous "Madonna di Piazza" for the cathedral of Pistoia, commissioned to Verrocchio in 1475 but executed by Lorenzo between 1485 and 1491.