Michelangelo Doni Tondo Essay

The Doni Tondo by Michelangelo in 1507 represents an Italian masterpiece through the nature of the painting, the patronage, the artist, the rarity, and the shift in style. A tondo creates meaning through not only the content, but also the context. Rather than a wedding gift, the wife receives the tray or painting after the first live birth in the tradition of birthing trays. These trays were presented to women when they were accepted back into the community after birth, filled with fruits and foods to celebrate the family and bring assurances of a healthy family. Throughout the renaissance, the tray changed from just a platter mounted on a wall to a portrait of the Holy Family presented separately. The Holy Family depicted on the tondo …show more content…
A story about the Doni family and Michelangelo’s relationship with this particular work became famous, as the husband asked Michelangelo to paint the Holy Family on a tondo and disliked the tondo upon delivery. Leaving the tondo, he returned to his wife. His wife did not appreciate this gesture, as they had yet to acquire a Michelangelo. Upon returning to the studio of Michelangelo, he supposedly told Doni that he could buy the painting for double the agreed upon price. This, however, has been found untrue through bank records. The family did acquire the painting at the original price after the first live birth of a son in 1507. The wool maker’s patronage sets this painting firmly in the Renaissance period, as up until that point the church and royalty were the main patrons of the arts. The middle class being able to afford this luxury item and the rise of the individual artist go hand in hand, allowing for the collection and success of artists that would have been part of a larger collective in earlier time periods. This mythification of the history of the work has led to the Doni Tondo’s well-known stature, in addition to its rarity in connection to the