The nudes in limbo: Michelangelo's Doni Tondo reconsidered

The round painting known as the Doni tondo, now in the Uffizi Gallery, is the only existing panel painting completed by Michelangelo, whose authorship has never been questioned. There is also a general consensus that Michelangelo painted it for a friend, Agnolo Doni. The tondo is, nevertheless, controversial in many other respects. Michelangelo is thought to have painted it when he was in Florence in either or , but the dates of both the commission and the execution of the work are, so far, undocumented. Furthermore, its iconography presents some decided novelties, namely the unusual pose of the Virgin and the even stranger presence of five nude figures in the background. These and other details have been subjected to many interpretations. The painting, however, still lacks an explanation which brings all its elements together and which is fully consistent with both its genre and its function. This article is based on the assumption that a closer investigation of the personal and devotional context in which the painting was produced, and of Doni family history, might shed new light on the making of the tondo, and perhaps also on its controversial date. Several scholars have indeed already insisted on both the private character and the devotional function of this work. Nevertheless, they have not really questioned the traditional reading of the painting, which (as we shall see) is not entirely consistent with the function of a painting of this kind—that is, a Marian tondo. Following this line of enquiry, I propose that the study of other pictures which are possibly related to the Doni tondo, in genre or iconography, may prove fruitful.