Doni Tondo

The Doni Tondo or Doni Madonna, is the only finished panel painting by the mature Michelangelo to survive. (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.) Now in the Uffizi in Florence, Italy, and still in its original frame, the Doni Tondo was probably commissioned by Agnolo Doni to commemorate his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi, the daughter of a powerful Tuscan family. The painting is in the form of a tondo, meaning in Italian, 'round', a shape which is frequently associated during the Renaissance with domestic ideas. The work was most likely created during the period after Doni's marriage in 1503 or 1504, and before the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes were begun in 1508. The Doni Tondo portrays the Holy Family (the child Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) in the foreground, along with John the Baptist in the middle-ground, and contains five nude male figures in the background. The inclusion of these nude figures has been interpreted in a variety of ways.