Madonna del Padiglione

Botticelli made this round panel around 1490, near the end of his career, for the kind of private devotion a Florentine family practised at home. The name comes from the padiglione, the rich cloth canopy at the top, and two angels draw its red curtains apart as if uncovering a secret. Inside, the Virgin tends the Christ child while a third angel supports him. The circular format, a tondo, was a Florentine favourite for exactly these intimate household images. The Virgin presses milk from her breast toward the child, the old image of Mary as nourisher. Botticelli painted it in the years just before the preacher Savonarola took hold of Florence and turned the city against worldly art.