The Tondo: A Florentine Invention

Tondo is a term for a circular work of art (plural: tondi). It was invented in Florence in the fifteenth century, and the form was used across a wide range of mediums, from paintings to terracotta and polychrome reliefs. The etymology of tondo is the Italian word "rotondo," meaning "round" or “circular.”

The circle was believed to be an incredibly powerful shape. Firstly, it was connected to Christianity, as it was believed to symbolise the heavenly perfection of God. Squares were also believed to hold special spiritual and mathematical significance, but this shape was seen more connected to the earth, rather than heaven. The circle, especially a circular dome in architecture, was a way of bringing an image of heaven down to an earthly viewer. Often, churches, such as the Pazzi Chapel, would have a lantern at the centre of the dome where natural light could enter and corresponding circular windows (known as oculi) around the dome. 

One of the main challenges of tracing the chronology of tondi is that the term itself was used fairly loosely as a noun and an adjective from around 1430 in Florence.[1] As a noun, it could describe domestic items such as plates or round paintings in the home; as an adjective, it could be used to praise an art work, with connotations of simplicity and cleanness of design. 

This exhibition will explore the religious power of tondi and their connection with other Florentine decorative art, from the earliest surviving Florentine circular art works of the fifteenth century to the Sala di Penelope in Palazzo Vecchio in the mid-sixteenth-century. 

[1] Roberta J. M. Olson, “Lost and partially found: the tondo, a significant Florentine art-form, in documents of the Renaissance.” Artibus et historiae 14 no. 27 (1993): 31-65, 31.