Luigi De Angelis: An Unpublished Biography of Giulio Mancini and a Shared Interest in Jacopo Torriti

Abstract

Starting from the publication of a short manuscript by Luigi De Angelis, entitled Di Giulio Mancini elogio, we focus our attention on the interest that the abbot showed about the Sienese doctor. He dedicates this text to Mancini because of his important biography, but also because of his attempt to revalue the Sienese painting at the expense of the Florentine one. In particular, De Angelis, with his Notizie istorico-critiche di Fra Giacomo da Torrita di Siena, continues this project many centuries later. Indeed, the exaltation of Jacopo Torriti was already noticeable in Giulio Mancini’s Considerazioni sulla pittura and in Guglielmo Della Valle’s Lettere sanesi. Compared to his predecessors, in the De Angelis’s text Torriti became a peerless artist: he lived more than ninety years, he is the author of many paintings in Siena, Florence and Rome, and he is the one who, with his works, has been able to revive the art of mosaic in Italy. In this way, Florence loses the primacy in the arts.