The Holy Family di Parte Guelfa

Signorelli painted this round panel around 1490 for the audience hall of the Parte Guelfa, one of the old political factions that ran Florence. The circular shape, called a tondo, was becoming fashionable for civic and domestic pictures of the Holy Family, and Signorelli was among the first to place the group out in an open landscape rather than a gilded interior. Younger Florentine artists were paying attention. The way he pushes these large, sculptural figures right up to the front of the picture fed directly into Michelangelo’s famous Doni Tondo some years later, and into work by Raphael and Andrea del Sarto. Mary, Joseph, and the child fill nearly the whole circle, close enough to touch.