Born in 1858, while still young he fixed his abode in Florence and here he completed his artistic studies. Accurate observer of reality, he distinguished himself with two great historical paintings: The last moments of Charles V and the Entry of Guglielmo Embriaci into Genoa after the conquest of Caesarea. However, he has a preference for subjects removed from common life, and his paintings of his internal representations and domestic scenes are rightly known. Besides the two historical paintings mentioned, Torriglia's main paintings are: The Sacred Heart, in the church of Salviola (Liguria); Sant'Agostino, in the church of Monte Figogna (Polcevera); The Sacred Heart, in the church of Sestri Levante; From the nurse, in the collection of comm. Carlo Beltracchini of Milan; The first born, in the Gallery of Modern Art in Florence. The artist is an honorary member of the Academies of Florence and Genoa. Giovanni Battista Torriglia, a pupil of the Ligustica Academy of Fine Arts from 1875 to 1882, was together with Luigi Gainotti and Angelo Vernazza, a pupil of Nicolò Barbino, "the master of masters" of whom after his studies he became a workshop assistant. The three students would later meet in Nicolò Barbino's studio, thus giving rise to a long friendship and collaboration which, as Vitaliano Rocchiero affirms, will recognize themselves in the "Barabinian School". However, the Barabinian school, supported by the main students: those who can be called such for having emulated the teacher, evidently without knowing it, lived, also for a certain fidelity to the ways of the teacher, through the work of Gainotti, Torriglia and, later, after the audacious divisionist deviations, by Vernazza. In 1886 Giovanni Battista Torriglia, following the favorable judgments of the professors of the Ligustica Academy with the combined classes of Painting and Sculpture, he was assigned the Pensionate Marquis Marcello Durazzo, who for merit was extended until 1891. His participation in the Promoting Society of Fine Arts in 1883 is documented and constitutes his public debut with two works "Passatempi in villeggiatura" and "Testa di vecchia". In 1901 he settled for a certain period in Florence, to attend the local Institute of Fine Arts, the painting "The first born" dates back to this period and is now preserved in the Gallery of Modern Art in Florence. In 1901 he settled in Tuscany for a number of years with a friend and colleague Tito Lessi (1858-1917). From this moment he slowly begins to paint religious and historical subjects and romantic internal subjects, depicting family life in Italy. His early subjects and figurative painting studies certainly set him apart for what would become his hallmark of beautiful romantic paintings. Giovanni Battista Torriglia in 1912 was appointed Academic of Merit at the Ligustica Academy of Fine Arts and the same did the Institute of Fine Arts in Florence, assigning him as an honorary member of its corresponding members. These awards testify to the artist's now achieved success especially in the field of historical painting, portraiture, religious painting and especially in the animated and meticulously real, family interiors that gave him wide fame among his contemporaries.