He worked predominantly and repeatedly in Treviso, where in 1352 he signed the extensive decoration of the Chapter House of the Dominicans at S. Niccolò; then in Mantua and very probably in Trent, and finally in Modena. His training was completed in the Bolognese environment, whence some vitalistic accents in his early works alongside Sienese motifs; but above all he underwent deep and lasting influences from the methods of illumination.
The taste for the vivid, striking representation drawn from the immediate freshness of realistic motifs, so characteristic of Bolognese illumination engaged in illustrating legal texts, T. transferred to the broader scope of large-scale sacred narrative. He thus enriched his compositions with a quantity of pleasing episodes, and above all deepened the psychological understanding of his figures through an exceedingly penetrating study of the mimetic values of gesture, the muscular contraction of faces, achieving results that may be termed a veritable “mimetic impressionism.” The most elevated example of this is the cycle with the Stories of St. Ursula (Museum of Treviso), rich in dramatic interplay; while earlier an extremely interesting “anthology of characters” may be seen in the aforementioned decoration of the Chapter House, with figures from the Dominican Order. To achieve this eloquent clarity in his pictorial discourse, T. employed an exquisitely delicate chiaroscuro modeling in color, which, even within the restricted bounds of “local color,” foreshadows tonal effects. His importance for the further development of Venetian painting and for the formation of Avanzo and Altichiero, who operated on a higher and broader plane, is considerable.