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Pietro Torrigiano, who gave his fellow student of Michelangelo his characteristic broken nose while they studied at the Carmine Chapel, would later travel across Europe and to England, dispersing the stylistic virtues of the Florentine Renaissance and creating enduring masterworks including the Tomb Effigies of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York (1512-17, Westminster Abbey), called by Pope-Hennessy ‘the finest Renaissance tomb north of the Alps’ (J. Pope-Hennessy, ‘The Tombs and Monuments,’ Westminster Abbey, Radnor, PA, 1972, p. 215). Fellow artist Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) documented Torrigiano’s expertise in various media including bronze, terracotta, stone, and wood in his biography written in 1568 (trans. Gaston Du C. De Vere, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, London, 1913, vol. IV, p. 187). Despite Vasari’s documentation of Torrigiano’s proclivity in the medium while he worked in England, only one named work by the artist in wood is historically known. The artist is better known for his smaller-scale commissions by Florentine merchants in bronze, marble, and particularly terracotta busts.

From 1511 to 1519, Torrigiano was working in England before traveling to Rome and likely returning to England later that year. Markedly in May 1519, the son of Torrigiano’s aforementioned patron, Pope Leo X (1475-1521) finalized canonization of Saint Francis of Paola, bringing the saintly friar to the fore as a subject of interest. Though Torrigiano’s movements through Europe in the following years are not as securely documented, he likely returned to England before arriving around 1522 in Spain and then returning to Florence by June 1525.

Torrigiano’s mature period in which he is an internationally renowned sculptor with works epitomized by expressive character and masterful technique is defined by Alfred Darr as his activity from 1510 to 1528 (Kunst des Cinquecento in der Toskana, pp. 108-38, note 9). During this period, Torrigiano conceived and executed his highly influential Penitent Jerome (Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville, c. 1526), a fully-formed figure in terracotta with easily apparent stylistic correspondence to the present figure. The model for Penitent Jerome is cited by Vasari as ‘an old house-steward of the Botti family,’ then living in Spain (The Lives…, p. 187). A close similarity between the present work and Penitent Jerome can be seen in the animated form and expressive character. On both figures the shape of the thin lips and nose, high and defined cheekbones, deep set eyes, protruding brow, and prominent facial hair with denser curls on the plains of the cheeks, contend that these may have been derived from the same model. Further stylistic similarity can be seen in Torrigiano’s articulation of loosely waved curls such as those on his terracotta portrait bust of Henry VII dated 1509 to 1511 (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, acc. A.49-1935).

In its original setting, the present figure may have been placed with other figures or elements indicating a specific miracle performed by Saint Francis of Paola. A staff would likely have been in the proper right hand. While the effects of time permeate this representation of revered Minim, the subject would have held immediate importance to its viewers in the early 16th century.