Biography

Italian illuminator. A cutting the in Detroit Institute of Arts from one of the missing folios (folio 122v) of the Gradual (Cod. H 74), depicts the Pentecost in an initial S, which begins the introit to the Mass for Pentecost. The great majority of the illuminations in this Gradual are by Lorenzo Monaco, but the Pentecost initial can be attributed to Matteo Torelli.

Matteo Torelli is an artist with a distinct personality, as the highly refined quality of the Detroit Pentecost reveals, with an identifiably personal manner of drawing and visualizing bodies in space.

His son, Filippo di Matteo Torelli (active c. 1446-1453) was also a miniaturist.