TORRIGIANO, Pietro

Torrigiano was a Florentine sculptor, who, in youth, studied under Bertoldo di Giovanni and in a fight broke the nose of Michelangelo and for this has been hated by all Florentines ever since. He was a brilliant and versatile sculptor and also one of the first Italian Renaissance artists to work in France, the Netherlands, Spain and perhaps Portugal. He was in the Netherlands 1509-10. He worked in England 1511-18 on the Tombs of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Elisabeth of York and Henry VII in Westminster Abbey, the latter being his masterpieceGLOSSARYA term now loosely applied to the finest work by a particular artist or to any work of art of acknowledged greatness or of preeminence in its field. Originally it meant the piece of work by which a craftsman, having finished his training, gained the rank of'master' in his guild.. He introduced the pure Renaissance style into England. He went to Seville in 1522. There according to Vasari (who also hated him for breaking Michelangelo's nose), he fell into the hands of the InquisitionGLOSSARYMedieval ecclesiastical institution for hunting down heretics and criminals; from 1231 papal Inquisitors (mainly Dominicans and Franciscans) were appointed. Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) and the collection of decrees published in 1234 made the Inquisition a papal institution ("Sanctum Officium"), and it was later extended to include other offenses such as magic, witchcraft and fortune-telling. and starved himself to death from sheer spleen.