Tondo - a round-shaped picture or bas-relief (short for Italian rotondo - round).
This form of paintings was especially popular in Renaissance Italy, in particular in Florence , where it appears already in the era of “ international Gothic ” (Master of the Court of Paris from Bargello) in the form of “desco da parto” (tray for women in labor). Masaccio gave this nobility a work of art to this originally handicraft product (The Birth of Mary, 1427-28, Berlin-Dahlem ).
In the era of the Quattrocento Tondo, all the major masters of that time began to use it: Domenico Veneziano (Adoration of the Magi, Berlin-Dahl), Fra Angelico , Filippo Lippi ( Adoration of the Magi , Washington , National Gallery of Art ). However, most often on the tondo portrayed " Madonna and Child ."
In this version, Tondo was used by Filippo Lippi ( Florence , Pitti Gallery ), Botticelli ( Madonna del Magnificat , Florence , Uffizi ), Filippino Lippi , Domenico Ghirlandaio , and then Lorenzo di Credi and Piero di Cosimo , whose works testify to the great popularity of Tondo in Tuscany, persisting in the last third of the quattrocento .
Tondo receives a more modern interpretation in the works of Michelangelo (“ Madonna Doni ”, Florence , Uffizi ), and in some “Madonna” by Rafael (“ Madonna Alba ”, Washington , National Gallery; “Madonna in an Armchair”, Florence , Pitti Gallery ). Less commonly, tondo was used in Dutch and French painting, as well as in the painting of mannerists .