Tondi (autonomous paintings or sculpture in a circular format) became a popular art form in Florence between the mid-fifteenth century and approximately 1520. A large majority of tondi—which feature the Madonna and Child, often in the company of saints or angels and occasionally in narrative scenes—were generally created for private devotion in the home during the Renaissance. Examples of famous tondi include Domenico Veneziano’s Adoration of the Magi (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, ca. 1441), Sandro Botticelli’s Madonna of the Magnificat (Florence, Uffizi, ca. 1482), Michelangelo’s Doni Holy Family (Florence, Uffizi, ca. 1503–6), and Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia (Florence, Galleria Pitti, ca. 1514). Roberta Olson’s point of departure in this study is Moritz Hauptmann’s Der Tondo: Ursprung, Bedeutung, und Geschichte des italienischen Rundbildes in Relief und Malerei (Frankfurt: V. Klostermann, 1936), a primarily formalistic examination of the subject. The layout of the volume is as follows: chapters 1–4 seek the genesis of this art form and examine its functions and contexts; chapters 5–7 discuss phases of development of the tondo and its iconographies; and chapter 8 explores the demise of the genre and serves as both epilogue and conclusion.

Olson’s initial concern is a search for prototypes for the tondo (chapter 1). Because of the influence of humanism during the period, she explores ancient Greek and Roman imagery in a circular format as antecedents for Renaissance tondi. She cites the imago clipeata (a portrait type from Roman antiquity that was framed within a circle and often associated with sepulchral purposes) as the most direct and significant precursor of tondi. The imago clipeata often appeared on sarcophagi and became linked to cosmic ideals. Olson also indicates that Renaissance deschi da parto (decorated birth trays), which were used to bring food or gifts to a new mother while still confined to her bed, are the more contemporary precedents of tondi.

The primary connection that the author makes between these three art forms is their circular format, although other influences on the tondo could have been discussed. Contemporary altarpieces also inspired the genre, and both types share many similarities and relationships that might have been addressed in the text. For instance, she might have explored iconographic intersections between tondi and altarpieces of artists such as Botticelli. The most intriguing nexus she traces is that between tondi and deschi, which often share themes of maternity and domesticity. It would also have been instructive to ponder what ideas, practices, and contexts led artists and patrons to abandon the desco and embrace the tondo (which coexisted briefly) in the mid-fifteenth century. In addition, it might have been useful to explore why works of art with a circular format came to be associated with the domestic context by the quattrocento, when in the Middle Ages and antiquity their function was funerary or ecclesiastic.

Olson proceeds by exploring the geometric, cosmological, literary, theological, and astrological symbolism of the circle in chapter 2. As an emblem of heaven and the universe, the circle was often related to notions of divinity, eternity, and perfection in antiquity and the Renaissance. These associations mesh easily with the format and content of the devotional tondo, but (again) problematize its predominantly domestic destination: Why were tondi created primarily for the home during the Renaissance? Continuing with the circular theme, the author discusses representations of Augustus’s Vision of the Divine Child; the Monogram of San Bernardino; rotae (ancient and medieval circular diagrams used to illustrate aspects of Ptolemaic cosmology); Dante’s concentric notion of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise; and centrally planned churches. Her search for a wide variety of sociohistorical links to the tondo is commendable, but the direct connection between these elements and tondi is not made explicit in the text.

In chapter 3, Olson examines the origins of tondi through documentary material. She briefly investigates the etymology of the word “tondo,” then searches Florentine Renaissance household inventories, artists’ records, and commission and payment documents for evidence of early tondi. She records their occurrences in a near-chronological approach, discovering that the concept of the tondo emerged around mid-fifteenth century. Given the book’s title, it would have been useful to consider what is particularly Florentine about these works of art (perhaps explaining the reasons for this geographic restriction and discussing the impact of contributions to the genre by non-Florentines, such as Raphael and Parmigianino). In this chapter Olson also mentions the two paintings of the Adoration of the Magi documented in a Medici inventory of 1492: one attributed to both Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi in Washington, DC (National Gallery of Art, ca. 1430s–1450s), and the other by Domenico Veneziano in Berlin. Considering the early dates of these two tondi, it would have been instructive to ponder whether and how the Medici encouraged the genre in the domestic setting.

Unlike Hauptmann before her, Olson places the tondo within a contextualizing framework. In chapter 4, she investigates the tondo’s setting and function in the aristocratic home, its relation to the use of the rosary and religious didactic exempla, contemporary notions of childhood and the family, and the cults of Saints Joseph and John the Baptist. Because of its brevity and limited scope, this multifaceted approach is useful but wanting. Additionally, one finds throughout this section mostly reverberations of other scholars on the issues addressed. The author would have done well to venture beyond established paradigms to present new theories on the tondo’s contexts. This is particularly evident when she discusses Michelangelo’s Doni Holy Familyat length in chapter 7: she synthesizes various scholars’ interpretations of this tondo but falls short of presenting a new one of her own.

I would also suggest that the author’s discussion of a woodcut from Girolamo Savonarola’s Predica dell’arte del bene morire (Florence, 1497; fig. 3.11) presents a missed opportunity to contextualize devotional tondi. In a section entitled “Evidence for Tondi in Works of Art,” she rightly points out that the tondo’s placement in the print is upon a mensola above eye level on the room’s wall, which corresponds to descriptions in contemporary inventories (79); curiously, however, she says nothing more about the image. What else might this illustration tell us about the tondo in situ during the Renaissance? How can it help us to understand the function and reception of devotional tondi at the time? How closely might this woodcut have represented patrician (and perhaps also artisan) bedchambers and their contents? What might have been the perceived efficacy of the tondo in this image against the demons found in the room waiting to snatch the dying man’s soul?

This exploration of the tondo’s cultural matrix gives way to three chapters (5–7) addressing subsets of the genre: circular portraits, sculpted devotional tondi, and painted devotional tondi. Chapter 5, which is concerned with portraits in the round, compiles many diverse images. Among them are sepulchral monuments; “belle donne” majolica plates, the portraits of Lorenzo Ghiberti and son on the “Gates of Paradise” of the Florentine baptistery, Paolo Uccello’s four prophets on the Duomo’s clock face, and Parmigianino’s Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, ca. 1523–24). The variety of tondi documented here suggests that no one single type was dominant at the time. The author also finds that portraits comprise the smallest category of tondi. Her suggestion that few exist because the circle was too closely associated with sepulchral imagery is feasible and intriguing; however, portraits of any type were just beginning to be revived in the period under the influence of classicism, which is a reason for their small numbers. Moreover, we must also blame time as a culprit for their disappearance through accidents, neglect, and changes of fashion.

Sculpted and painted tondi are the themes of chapters 6 and 7, respectively. These sections point to what may be the earliest surviving autonomous tondi (works by Luca della Robbia, Domenico Veneziano, and Filippo Lippi). Both chapters then chart the chronology of succeeding tondi and discuss some of their formal and iconographic aspects. A subdivision of chapter 7, oddly entitled “Successful Painted Tondi,” focuses on works by Francesco Botticini, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, and other artists, exploring their formal and iconographic aspects in more depth than anywhere else in the text. It would appear, however, that this section could have been combined with the appendix, entitled “Painters of Tondi,” which catalogues many artists and their works. Unfortunately, much of the analysis in chapters 5–7 is descriptive and formalistic. Further, these works are seen in isolation, without apparent connection to noncircular art forms.

Chapter 8 examines the fate of the tondo, which essentially disappeared as a genre after ca. 1520. Olson suggests various plausible reasons for this demise. She also touches upon circular works of art by Claude Monet, Robert Delaunay, and Piet Mondrian, suggesting that they were inspired by Renaissance tondi. This argument is undeveloped, and because of the circle’s universality, the tondo’s influence upon ensuing periods is unclear to this reader.

In closing, I would like to stress some of the strengths of the volume. Its collection of images of Renaissance tondi, some of which are obscure or lost, is prolific. It imparts numerous noteworthy observations on the genre. The book is well researched and informative, which makes it a good source for further inquiry on the subject. It presents a considerable amount of information on construction methods of tondi in one location. The text is also written clearly and concisely and avoids jargon, presenting the specialist, student, or lay reader with a particularly attractive book.