Tondo, Tondi

 

Here's an example of why one could spend a lifetime in Florence. Not a day, not a week, perhaps a month or a year, but preferably a lifetime. Didn't start soon enough, me. There is so much art, so much history, that to peel back the layers of just one piazza, one church, one portico is to indulge in such rich learning.

This is the church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. It is situated on the piazza of the same name. It's a ten minute walk down the Via dei Servi from the Duomo. My goal was to visit the fabled and beautiful Ospedale degli Innocenti. Which I did. But I also visited this church. I won't go into the architecture, the spiritual significance, the Baroque interior.I will spend my time before a fresco painted by Andrea del Sarto.

The painting is of the birth of the Virgin Mary. This being a Marian church, all of the precious frescoes in this atrium outside the church proper are of scenes in the life of the Virgin. 

The birth is taking place in a Renaissance palazzo. You can see the newborn Mary being warmed at the fire, by one of the many women gathered in the birthing room. A Florentine tradition is taking place: after the birth women bring restorative dishes to the bedside on round trays. According to one source, these 'birth trays' were later hung on the wall, as a memento of the event.

From this arose the art tradition of the 'tondo', a small round painting, usually domestic in nature, typically featuring the madonna and child.

Here's the most famous tondo painting, the Doni Tondo (1507), the only finished panel painting by Michelangelo to have survived. The less charitable suggest that it's the only one ever finished. Despite the fact that I'm not a fan of his tortured Mannerist style or his masculine female figures, I made a visit to the painting while at the Uffizi. It is sublime; portraying the holy family, John the Baptist and five male nudes.

Somewhere I read that Michelangelo's women looked like men with breasts. Think of it - the Sybils on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the sculptures on the Medici tombs. 

Art writer Jill Burke offers a couple of cheeky essays on the topic,  ArtCurious and Jill Burke Part 2.

And here are a couple of tondi that I loved a great deal more, the Madonna of the Magnificat (1481) and the Madonna of the Pomegranate (1487) by Sandro Botticelli.

 

So, isn't this a fine rabbithole down which to find ourselves?