Madonna and Child with Two Angels

The circular format of this painting, called a tondo, was popular during the Renaissance. In contrast to the ethereal symbolic attributes, such as halos, wings, and ceremonial gestures, there is a solid, new physicality in the rendering of bodies that is characteristic of Renaissance Art. This is most evident in the pudgy figure of the Christ Child, in the delineation of anatomy beneath the clothing, and in the individual and distinctive faces of the angels. The setting is idyllic but credible, with precisely drawn grasses and plants in the foreground and a view of fifteenth-century Florence in the distance.