Pietro Torrigiano

Pietro Torrigiano (24 November 1472 – July/August 1528)[1] was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Florence, who had to flee the city after breaking Michelangelo's nose.

It was Buonarroti’s habit to banter all who were drawing there; and one day, among others, when he was annoying me, I got more angry than usual, and clenching my fist, gave him such a blow on the nose, that I felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles; and this mark of mine he will carry with him to the grave.”[3]Michelangelo's friend Vasari says that Torrigiano instigated the fight because he was motivated by jealousy, and that he was forced to flee from Florence as a result of his act.

[4]He goes on to say that the assault was reported to Lorenzo de' Medici who was "so greatly incensed against the offender, that if Torrigiano had not fled from Florence he would without doubt have inflicted some very heavy punishment on him.

"[4] Whether or not he was "banished", soon after this Torrigiano visited Rome, and helped Pinturicchio in modelling the elaborate stucco decorations in the Apartamenti Borgia for Pope Alexander VI.

[5] He was commissioned to create the tomb monument of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, in 1510, working to "patrones" or pattern drawings by Meynnart Wewyck.

The altar had marble pilasters at the angles, two of which still exist, and below the mensa was a life-sized figure of the dead Christ in painted terra cotta.

[3] The latter part of Torrigiano's life was spent in Spain, especially at Seville, where, besides the painted figure of St. Hieronymus in the museum, some terracotta sculpture by him still exists.

[4] In other stories, he was carving the Virgin and made a mistake, at which point he defaced the statue in his annoyance, and was seen by clerics and charged as a result by the Spanish Inquisition.

Terracotta bust of Henry VII made by Torrigiano
Henry VII's Tomb, Westminster Abbey
A monument of Dr John Yonge, Master of the Rolls, displayed at the King's College London 's Maughan Library
Tomb of John Colet, D.D.,
Dean of St. Paul's.
After Hollar.