diam. monsters. Some are described in the inventories as having a veil covering as a show of respect, implying the sacred devotional function of these images.’ [34]. This would perhaps partly explain the proliferation of Madonna tondi as important domestic works; and, whilst placing them high on a wall might encourage the habitual position of prayer, it would also underline the heavenly origin of the vision, enclosed by the golden halo of the frame and appearing in the mundane world of the home. 108-10, 109, note I; quoted in Nicolai Rubinstein, ‘Classical themes in the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence’, Journal of the Warburg & Courtauld Institutes, 1987, vol. The bronze tondo is set very low in the frame, allowing two adult versions of the bronze child angels to be carved in the spandrels and upper tier of the inner panel, echoing with their own marble scroll the bronze garland held by the little angels, and predicting, in their own ageing and in the crown they also hold, the Virgin’s future coronation in heaven. She posits a referencing of the Madonna to Noah's daughter-in-law, a sibyl, which thus makes Joseph an embodiment of Noah himself. The frame of the Virgin with the pomegranate, executed around the same time as the painting – or, rather, a few years later – recalls, in the technical virtuosity of the carving and the ornamental motifs, the ceiling coffering in the Udienza and the Sala dei Gigli, or Hall of Lilies, executed between 1476 and 1481. "[3] In choosing a tondo as the format for the picture, Michelangelo is referencing the form's long association with depicting the "Adoration of the Magi, the Nativity, [and] the Madonna and Child. diam. The author of these two frames might, therefore, be Lorenzo di Girolamo Donati, who was called upon on 28 April 1540, along with Beccafumi, Bartolommeo di David and Francesco di Carlo Tolomei, to judge a bronze crucifix executed by Giovannandrea di Carlo Galletti for the Confraternita della Morte in Siena [26]. These were commissioned to hang in the Audience Chamber of the Palazzo del Popolo in 1482, and were initially projected as being two panels, either square or round, whichever would appear best (presumably to the two citizens chosen to oversee their execution). Francesco del Tasso (1463-1519), detail of carved gryphon in a garland frame, Sala dell’Udienza, Collegio del Cambio, Perugia. [19] The anemone plant represents the Trinity and the Passion of Christ. 59-60. diam. She sees it as a forerunner of (or even in some sense a model for) Michelangelo’s tondo, because of the naked youths in the background, and the figures of two prophets and bust of John the Baptist in the painted frame. cit., p. 141-42, and note 18, [55] Ibid., fig. [17] Michelangelo probably knew of the work and its ideas, and he wanted to incorporate those ideas into his own work. [6][7][10] The background figures are five nudes, whose meaning and function are subject to much speculation and debate. For the long and tortuous history of the ‘jalousie’ in the Palazzo Pubblico, see E. Romagnoli, Biografia cronologica de’Bellartisti senesi 1200-1800 (1835), Bibliothèque Communale de Sienne, MS LII 1-13, Florence, 1976, vol. The Signorelli has a carved garland frame made up of two festoons of leaves and symbolic fruit, springing upward from ribbon-bound double tubs or urns at the base to meet under a large rose at the top. 21-37, [19] Barbara Schleicher, ‘Relazioni sul restauro della cornice del Tondo Doni’, ibid., pp. The subdued, earthy tones of the stucchi harmonize with the monochrome interior as Brunelleschi conceived it; so that, although he disagreed with the importation of any image, ornament or decorative architectural features into the sacristy, he did not have to face the greater extreme of brightly-painted frescos or altarpieces. These are carved garland frames, but in the shape of a tight cushion moulding of imbricated bay leaves, with bands of gilded fruits peering out at intervals and spiralling red ribbons. [6] Saint John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence, is very commonly included in Florentine works depicting the Madonna and Child. diam., Museo Civico, San Gimignano. Un libro è un insieme di fogli, stampati oppure manoscritti, delle stesse dimensioni, rilegati insieme in un certo ordine e racchiusi da una copertina.. Il libro è il veicolo più diffuso del sapere. Bay-leaf garlands: around the cartouche for a stemma, Pseudo-Saint Bonaventura (attrib. The fruits refer to various aspects of Christ, His Passion, and the Madonna [44]. Since the contract with Tasso mentions walnut friezes, capitals (for pilasters, rather than free-standing columns) and coloured wooden inlays, the Doni interior must also have had an overall effect of stained and polished woods, picked out with parcel-gilding, with the halo of the golden tondo shining above it. A contract discovered in 2005 between the architectural woodworker, Francesco del Tasso (1463-1519), and Lodovico de’ Nobili, describes the interior in carved walnut wood and coloured wooden inlays which the former is to execute for the latter, ‘better worked than those of Agnolo Doni, or comparable to them’, indicating that a particularly important and opulently-decorated room in Agnolo’s house had been finished by the time of this second contract, 3rd January 1506 [50]. The National Gallery Technical Bulletin 30th Anniversary Conference, 2009, pp. Another document dealt with by Olson and associated with the commission of a tondo is the contract with Marco della Robbia the younger, the son of Andrea and great-nephew of Luca della Robbia, who became a Dominican friar in 1496 (although continuing to work as a ceramicist). Detail of carved giltwood coffering with panels of lilies, ceiling of the Sala dell’ Udienze, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. This piece is dedicated to Sophie Neve on her birthday, because, as she said, frames are just a lot of square things…, ‘The tondo: one of the most original innovations of the Renaissance in Florence’, Bernardo Rossellino (1409-64), tomb of Leonardo Bruni, 1446-48, marble, 610 cm. Whilst the structural alterations and decorative work were proceeding, the works of art intended for the palazzo were commissioned, and here, according to the Anonimo Magliabechiano [13], Botticelli played an important part: he executed a painting of the Three Kings above the staircase of the Catena, and, on 5 October 1482, he and Ghirlandaio were commissioned to paint a fresco on one wall of the Udienza. [65] Olson, ‘Lost and partially found…’, op.cit., p. 33, [66] Martin Anglesea, in a catalogue entry on Turner’s The dawn of Christianity for the Ulster Museum, no date; see more in ‘Turner’s picture frames: part 2’. [1] (Two other panel paintings, generally agreed to be by Michelangelo but unfinished, the Entombment and the so-called Manchester Madonna, are both in the National Gallery in London.) Benedetto & Giuliano da Maiano, detail of carved giltwood coffering, ceiling of the Sala dei Gigli, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Marquetry door between the Sala dell’ Udienza and Sala dei Gigli (Gigli side), and detail of fleur-de-lys panel (Udienza side), Palazzo Vecchio, Florence; detail of the frame of Madonna of the pomegranate, Uffizi. Fortunately, in 1902 its original frame was given back to the Doni Tondo (the Lorenzo di Credi now hangs in the Museo Horne without any frame at all), and has recently been cleaned and restored. The earliest tondi paintings are linked more or less thematically to the deschi da parto: the Adoration of the Magi by Domenico Veneziano, c.1439-41, Gemäldegalerie, another Adoration by Fra Angelico, finished by Filippo Lippi in 1445, in the NGA, and a Madonna and Child, also by Filippo Lippi in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, of c.1453. A second Adoration tondo noted in the 1492 Medici inventory[37] is by Domenico Veneziano; it has also been reframed in a much later style than it would have possessed originally. Mary is the most prominent figure in the composition, taking up much of the center of the image. JMW Turner (1775-1851), The Dawn of Christianity (The Flight into Egypt), 1841, o/c, 79 cm. A tondo frame in the collection of the V & A, which has great similarities to the frame on the Michelangelo, is attributed to Francesco del Tasso or to another member of his family. refers to John Pope-Hennessy’s theory that Luca della Robbia’s use of brightly-coloured glazed terracotta was inspired by its potential to ‘clarify compositions in large architectural interiors’, [33] Roberta JM Olson, ‘Lost and partially found: the tondo, a significant Florentine art-form, in documents of the Renaissance’, Artibus et historiae, 1993, vol. Most interpretations differ in defining the relationship between the Holy Family and the figures in the background. Mattia’s interest seems to have been much more in the dramatic or emotional realization of the figures in his pieces than in the garland frames which surround them; his fruits tend to be arranged in their festoon of leaves more tidily and symmetrically than in the highly naturalistic garlands of Andrea della Robbia, and the drawing for the contract confirms this. II, p. 66 [NB: Roberta Olson, in ‘An old mystery solved: the 1487 payment document to Botticelli for a tondo’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 1995, 39 Bd, H. 2/3, pp. 1390-1445), Le devote meditatione sopra la passione del nostro signore, 1487, Metropolitan Museum, New York; detail of Donatello, David, c.1440s, bronze, Museo Nazionale de Bargello, Florence. Interestingly, the top left quadrant of the Doni frame has three crescent moons, echoing the Strozzi impresa, tangled amongst twining branches and sprigs of foliage, between two long-necked panthers (or perhaps a panther and a bear), whose bodies morph into further loops of foliage, and which diverge at the bottom into the heads of two more (sea?) Doni Tondo (Holy Family) Holy Family, the only finished panel painting by the artist to survive, was commissioned by Agnolo Doni for his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi, daughter of a powerful Tuscan family, which gives it its name.It portrays Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and an infant John the Baptist. The Virgin's placement and emphasis is due to her role in human salvation. [18] The pose of the nude figure in the background immediately behind Saint Joseph, to our right, appears to have been influenced by the twisting contortions of the figures captured by the serpent in the Laocoön (again, if this were so, it would alter the date of the Doni Tondo by several years). 2 S.S.P.A.E. Michelangelo uses the hyssop and tree as a visual representation of a quote by Rabanus Maurus, "From the Cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop which grows on a stony wall we have an explanation of the Divinity which Christ has in his Father and of the humanity that he derives from the Virgin Mary." Stylistic comparisons are made difficult by the lack of firmly documented works, because of the destruction or dispersal of Florentine decorative interiors; however, the reference to the Del Tasso family is indirectly confirmed by the phrase (seen in documents by Cinelli in 1677), ‘with splendid pillars carved by Tasso’, referring to the bridal chamber of the patrons, Agnolo and Maddalena Doni. Michelangelo’s alleged part in designing the frame for the tondo cannot be taken for granted; it rests to some extent on drawings such as this, which depict small elements with intertwining zoömorphic forms and foliage, like the carved and undercut ornament of the frame, and like the evidently similar decoration of the cassoni and spalliere in the house. Donatello’s stucchi in Brunelleschi’s roundels: from left, St Luke; St John on Patmos; St John, Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo. ‘The fact that the face of the upper head in the frame – identifiable as Christ’s head… would not have been fully visible unless seen from below suggests that the panel was hung in a high position’ [57]. In the same inventories, she traces the development of references to deschi da parto, which gradually seem to modify into references to tondi, occasionally with the frame mentioned; for example, in 1497. The Primavera (valued at 100 lire) was later moved to the Villa di Castello, but it is not known when, or whether the Signorelli, which seems to carry on the idea of a white or pale frame, might have hung in one of the other rooms in Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s home in the Via Larga. [17] The Virgin's right arm mirrors the arm of the satyr in the cameo, and the cameo also depicts an infant located on the shoulders of the satyr, a position similar to the Christ Child being passed over the right arm of Mary.[10]. [8], Roberta Olson states that the painting depicts the "importance of the family" and is related to "Doni’s hoped-for descendants. The bound urns or cornucopiae at the base from which the two branches of leaves and fruit spring, and the flower at the top where they meet; even the variety of fruit – they might all have been translated into giltwood by a carver who has studied similar classical garlands, sketched them carefully, and then re-used them in his own medium. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. At any rate, the pair of tondi would have made striking focal points in the room when freshly set into silvered garlands scattered with golden fruit and bound with red (probably crimson) ribbons. [24] Hayum further supports this by acknowledging the direct link between Joseph and Noah as depicted in Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling paintings. Francesco del Tasso (1463-1519) was eminently capable of designing a frame like this by himself, being one of a vast dynasty of woodcarvers working through the whole of the 15th and most of the 16th centuries in and around Florence, Pistoia and Perugia, who produced doors, lecterns, the woodwork for the seats, panelling and inlays of choirs, the coffering of ceilings, and frames. VI, 1913, p. 244, [29] See Jessica Clinton, The ornamentation of Brunelleschi’s Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence, MA thesis, Louisiana State University, 2010, p. 47, note 73, [30] Ibid., p. 46, quoting Vasari, ‘Life of Brunelleschi’, Lives…, Gaston du C. de Vere transl., 1912, vol. Golden lilies in grey roundels, some of which can still be seen, appeared in Michelozzo’s decoration of the first courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, around 1453 [8], and the fleur-de-lys of France on an azure field decorated the Medici arms after the death of Cosmo de’ Medici in 1464 [9]. Michelangelo saw the drawing in 1501 while in Florence working on the David. According to A[lessandro] Cecchi, ‘Agnolo e Maddalena [Doni committenti di Raffaello’, in Studi su Raffaello, ed. [28] Much importance is given to Joseph by way of the colors of his clothes: yellow, indicating the divine aspect of the family as well as "truth," and purple, standing for royal lineage tracing from the House of David. Michelangelo, who had been strongly influenced by the Dominican Fra Girolamo Savonarola in Florence, is using the picture to defend the Maculist point of view, a philosophy of the Dominican order rejecting the idea of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. ‘On the fourth day of June 1524 Fra Mattia della Andrea of Florence a Dominican friar of his own free will &c. has promised &c. Ser Alberto Serra the present Notary to the Apostolic Court of Cardinal C[ornaro ?] Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), Prudence, c. 1475, glazed terracotta, 64 ¾ ins (164.5 cm.) The first image shows the inside of a cup with a tondo set in a border of Greek fret and crosses, equating to the geometric and architectural ornament which would later emerge in modern giltwood frames. The painting must therefore have been produced from that pressure-cooker seething with great works of art which the Palazzo Vecchio (then the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of the city magistrates) – became, after the Signoria’s allocation of funds on 20 April 1469 [11]. ; Alessandro Cecchi, ‘Il tondo Doni agli Uffizi’, ibid., pp. Domenico Beccafumi, Holy Family with St John as a child and a donor, c. 1528-35, Museo Horne, Florence. 91700, [61] Webster Smith, ‘On the original location of the Primavera’, The Art Bulletin, vol. Donatello (1386-1466), Madonna & Child with two angels, c.1445, gilded bronze, 27 cm. The painting is still in its original frame, one that Michelangelo might have influenced or helped design. Similar to the nudes of the background, the meanings of these heads has been the subject of speculation. This semi-circle reflects or mirrors the circular shape of the painting itself and acts as a foil to the vertical nature of the principal group (the Holy family). 54-56, [9] See G. Pieraccini, La Stirpe de’ Medici di Cafaggiolo, Florence, 1924, vol. [21] Barolsky bases much of his thesis on the language used by Giorgio Vasari in his work Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times. Their richly carved and gilded ceilings and friezes were executed under the direction of Benedetto da Maiano, his brother Giuliano, Francesco di Giovanni (Francione), Francesco Monciatti, Giovanni da Gaiuole and the brothers Marco, Domenico and Giuliano del Tasso [12]. or 34 ½ ins] and the garland frame with the [band of] cherubs is another 1 ¼ palmi [in width: 36.44 cm. Jessica Clinton’s MA thesis tackles the date for Donatello’s intervention in the decoration of the sacristy. The second of these articles shows an early source for round images – the scenes painted inside ancient Greek vases, bowls, cups and plates – but it is worth publishing further images to show the different borders which may contain figural and other scenes. Here the inserted roundel is a fragment from a larger panel by the 14th century Bartolomeo Bulgarini (fl.1337-78), possibly from a large-scale polyptych. Furthermore, the inclusion of the five protruding heads in the paintings frame is often seen as a reference to a similar motif found on Ghiberti's Porta del Paradiso, the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistry which Michelangelo is known to have greatly admired. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), The tondo frame in Renaissance Florence: a round-up, Fruit, flowers, foliage: the symbolism of Renaissance frames, El Djem Archaeological Museum, Al-Djamm, Tunisia, Christie’s, New York, 4 June 2008, lot 277, his fruits tend to be arranged in their festoon of leaves, naturalistic garlands of Andrea della Robbia, Sala dei Santi, Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Fundacja Książąt Czartoryskich, Biblioteka Cyfrowa, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, women were encouraged to look at images of beautiful children, Sotheby’s, New York, 28 January 2021, Lot 15, National Museums Northern Ireland; Collection Ulster Museum, The rise of the all’antica altarpiece frame, Painters & woodcarvers in early Renaissance Italy, Renaissance symbols: the iconography of a 15, National Gallery, London: reframing Mantegna. The juxtaposition of bright colors foreshadows the same use of color in Michelangelo's later Sistine Ceiling frescoes. 497-503, [28] Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite…, transl. The Brygos Painter (attrib. The ornamental moulding at the back edge of the frame was long ago sawn off, and replaced by two wider mouldings, rendering it noticeably wider than the original [19]. [45] Olson, ‘Lost and partially found…’, op.cit., p. 47. The stucco Madonna & Child in the Ashmolean, which opens Cecchi’s article (above), and which has a replacement frame, appears again in a small domestic altarpiece in the Casa Siviero in Florence, where another cast from the same mould is built into a slightly later gabled panel, creating the centrepiece of a triptych, with four Franciscan saints below, and the risen Christ in the gable above. high, and detail of Madonna tondo, Santa Croce, Florence. The Ashmolean stucco is certainly earlier than any of the painted examples, and the Donatello is more or less contemporary with the first surviving painted tondi, by Veneziano and Fra Angelico/Lippi. C. von Fabricay, ‘Michelozzo di Bartolomeo’, Jahrbuch der preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XXV, 1904, Beiheft, pp. They are much closer to the garlands of tightly-packed bay leaves used to surround a stemma or heraldic emblem in the 15th century, or as coronets associated with Roman warriors, emperors and heroes (like the biblical David). There is some debate as to whether Mary is receiving the Child from Joseph or vice versa. Signorelli's Madonna similarly uses a tondo form, depicts nude male figures in the background, and displays the Virgin sitting directly on the earth. Beccafumi used the same woodcarver later in his career, as witnessed by the very similar rectilinear frame of Christ carrying the cross in Siena, attributed to the artist’s last decade. The similarities in the four heads carved on the tondo frame in the Museo Horne to studies of heads, characteristic of Peruzzi’s later drawings, would seem to confirm this connection. A decisive leap forward in the design of the tondo frame on a sculptural level, and – in terms of innovation – on the ornamental level, occurs with Michelangelo’s breathtaking Doni tondo, which can now be dated, on the basis of recent research [18], to c.1506. Baldassarre Peruzzzi (1481-1536), design for a frieze with the Arms of Cardinal Rangone; two putti with a swan and lion, pen-&- ink, brown wash, heightened with white/ paper, 13.1 x 35.1 cm., © The Trustees of the British Museum. Some of them are particularly celebrated and historically interesting: for example, the tray attributed to Masaccio in the Gemäldegalerie, probably executed by a painter in his circle and dating from around 1430-40 [4], or the one painted by Lo Scheggia with the Triumph of Fame in 1449, to commemorate the birth of Lorenzo the Magnificent (Metropolitan Museum) [5]. Michelangelo’s tondo was to be part of the decoration of this room from the beginning, and it is logical to assume that the craftsmen responsible for the rest of the interior would be commissioned to make the frame [23]. diam., reframed in a modern replica; Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Behind Saint John the Baptist is a semi-circular ridge, against which the 'ignudi' are leaning, or upon which they are sitting. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted politics, both international and domestic, by affecting the governing & political systems of multiple countries, causing suspensions of legislative activities, isolation or deaths of multiple politicians and reschedulings of elections due to fears of spreading the virus. Una de las primeras obras realizadas por Miguel Ángel entre los años 1503 y 1504 en rememoración al casamiento de Agnolo Doni con Maddalena Strozzi. "[3] Hayum also finds many allusions to Noah throughout the work. On the wall to the right of the couch is a console, fixed above head-height, and bearing (propped up on it) a tondo with a Madonna & Child and two angels, in a frame with a twisted rope or cable moulding (like that on Lo Scheggia’s desco da parto with the Triumph of Fame for the Medici). The Lovers by Rene Magritte The pictorial scene both uses this border (the girl’s foot follows the curve of the inside edge as though it were part of the image) and subverts it (it cuts through the table, suggesting that the scene continues beyond the ‘frame’, as in modern paintings). The garland framing a portrait sculpture on the Roman sarcophagus above is uncannily close to the carved and gilded frames of Madonna tondi, such as this one, mentioned by Cecchi, on Signorelli’s Madonna in Munich. Another tondo executed in fresco and mentioned in Olson’s article is a Madonna & Child by Pinturicchio in the Sala dei Santi, one of the suite of rooms which were decorated for the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, in an extraordinarily rich programme, sumptuous with gilding and enamelled colours (still being restored, the suite having been sealed away for 400 years after Alexander’s death). VII, cc. Looking on the work as a pastime, he was almost always there, and it was his solicitude that caused Filippo to finish the sacristy, and Donato to make the stucco-work, with the stone ornaments for those little doors and the doors of bronze.” With this information it is now clear that Brunelleschi was still in the process of finishing the sacristy while Donatello was creating the ornamental elements, leading me to believe, if we accept Vasari’s account as fact, that the earlier dates of 1429-1432 are more likely for Donatello’s work in the Old Sacristy.’ [30], Donatello (c.1386-1466), The raising of Drusiana, stucco tondo in the pendentive, above the Medici stemma, 1429-32?, Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo. It is a shallow-relief carving in which the figures are set forward of the ‘frame’, which is decorated below the top fillet with a band of stylized palm leaves (for martyrdom) interspersed with roses (for the Virgin), with an architectural moulding inside this, at what would normally be the sight edge. There is a citron tree in the background, which represents the Cedar of Lebanon. It also establishes (as well as the diameter of the figural panel) the width of the frame, comprising the garland of foliage and fruit and the inner band of cherubs, thus establishing that the size of the setting relative to the image was contractually agreed in a fairly precise way.
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