Torrigiano

Torrigiano (or Torrigiani, Pietro) (1472–1528). Florentine sculptor. He was trained under Bertoldo di Giovanni in the Medici ‘academy’ and in a quarrel broke the nose of his fellow student Michelangelo, permanently disfiguring him. This assault on his favourite so angered Lorenzo de' Medici that Torrigiani fled Florence and in the 1490s he seems to have worked mainly in Rome; he is also said to have spent some time as a soldier. In 1504 he is documented in Avignon, and in 1509–10 he worked in the Netherlands for Margaret of Austria (see Habsburg). By 1511 he had moved to England, where he executed his most important works, chief among them the tomb of Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York (1512–18) in Westminster Abbey. The two sensitive bronze effigies, made with the aid of death masks, have a Gothic elegance, but the figures of angels at the corners of the tomb and the exquisite decorative work introduced a pure Renaissance style into England. It had little immediate influence, however. In about 1522 Torrigiano left England for Spain, abandoning a projected tomb for Henry VIII. According to Vasari, he was imprisoned by the Inquisition on a charge of sacrilege and starved himself to death.