Jacopo Torriti

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Torriti, Jacopo (active 1290s). Italian mosaicist and painter. Nothing is known of his life, but he signed mosaics commissioned by Pope Nicholas IV for the apses of two churches in Rome, S. Giovanni in Laterano (c.1291), and S. Maria Maggiore (c.1295), and he must have been one of the leading contemporaries of Cavallini. The mosaic in S. Giovanni in Laterano appears to have been a reworking of an earlier design and was reconstructed in the 19th century, so Torriti's style can best be assessed from the less restored mosaic in S. Maria Maggiore. Here, in the main scene of the Coronation of the Virgin and subsidiary scenes from the life of the Virgin, Torriti recaptures something of the vitality of late antique mosaics; he was clearly influenced in his choice of colour by the pale delicate harmonies and silvery lights of the 5th-century mosaic on the triumphal arch of the same church. A number of frescos in the Upper Church of S. Francesco, Assisi, have been attributed to Torriti because of their stylistic similarity to the S. Maria Maggiore mosaic.

Torriti, Jacopo (active 1290s). Italian mosaicist and painter. Nothing is known of his life, but he signed mosaics commissioned by Pope Nicholas IV for the apses of two churches in Rome, St John Lateran (c.1291), and S. Maria Maggiore (c.1295), and he must have been one of the leading contemporaries of Cavallini. The mosaic in St John Lateran appears to have been a reworking of an earlier design and was reconstructed in the 19th century, so Torriti's style can best be assessed from the less restored mosaic in S. Maria Maggiore. Here, in the main scene of the Coronation of the Virgin and subsidiary scenes from the life of the Virgin, Torriti recaptures something of the vitality of late antique mosaics; he was clearly influenced in his choice of colour by the pale delicate harmonies and silvery lights of the 5th-century mosaic on the triumphal arch of the same church. A number of frescos in the Upper Church of S. Francesco, Assisi, have been attributed to Torriti because of their stylistic similarity to the S. Maria Maggiore mosaic.