Pietro Torrigiano

Pietro Torrigiano (also: Pietro Torrigiani or Pietro Torrisano ); (* November 24, 1472 in Florence, † in August 1528 Seville ) was a Florentine Renaissance sculptor.

Life

He spent his life for the most part on peregrinations. Torrigiano worked in the offices of the Borgias in Rome ( 1493 ), in Bologna and Siena. He went in 1509 to Antwerp, where he was temporarily in the service of Margaret of Austria. In 1510 he came to England, where he produced his best work, the tombs of Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York at Westminster Abbey ( 1512-18 ). His bronze and marble statues are considered first authentic examples of Italian Renaissance art in England. 1519 Torrigiano visited Florence, returned to England and eventually went to Spain, where he worked in Seville. There he was arrested by the Inquisition and charged with heresy. He died in prison.

In Spain he led in 1522 the fine terracotta statues of St. Jerome and the " Virgin and Child " from (both are now in the Museum of Seville ). Two exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art male portrait busts illustrate his refined and dignified style.

Trivia

When Michelangelo was still a boy, he was with others in the Florentine church of Santa Maria del Carmine in the extended chapel painted by Masaccio, and he had a habit of mocking everyone who recorded there. Pietro Torrigiano it was eventually too much, as it reported Benvenuto Cellini; He clenched his fist and struck Michelangelo so hard on the nose that she broke - and he has drawn Michelangelo for his life. In Giorgio Vasari's Vita, the story is told a little differently. There Torrigiano to have his pupil Michelangelo moved from envy the blow.