Second article in the Raphael series. Learning Italian and love art? Book a private online lesson or join the course waiting list at my-italian-teacher.ch.
The artworks at a glance
- Artist: Raphael; the paintings on the back are attributed to the so-called Master of Serumido
- Title: Portraits of Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi (on the back: the Flood and the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha)
- Date: c. 1504–1507 (the chronology is debated)
- Medium: oil on panel
- Location: Uffizi Galleries, Florence (since 2018 next to Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo)
A couple’s portrait in the Florence of Leonardo and Michelangelo
When Raphael arrived in Florence around 1504, the city was the liveliest artistic laboratory in Europe. Leonardo and Michelangelo were working there in the same years, and the young painter from Urbino studied both with tireless curiosity. Among his first Florentine commissions were Raphael’s Doni Portraits: two panels depicting a wealthy merchant, Agnolo Doni, and his young wife, Maddalena Strozzi.
The two panels are interesting for several reasons. They show how Raphael absorbed Leonardo’s lesson, in particular the Mona Lisa. They document the material culture of early sixteenth-century Florence: fabrics, jewels, hairstyles. And they tell the story of a rare kind of patronage: the Doni were among the very few private individuals to commission works from both Raphael and Michelangelo.
At the end you will find an Italian workshop on fashion vocabulary and relative pronouns: describing a dress or a jewel is a very good way to practise them.
1. Who were Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi?
Agnolo Doni (1474–1539) was a wealthy cloth merchant of the Florentine upper middle class and a passionate collector of precious stones and antiques. Maddalena Strozzi (1489–1540) belonged to one of the city’s most influential aristocratic families, a long-standing rival of the Medici. According to the Uffizi Galleries, the couple married on 31 January 1504; some sources give 1503, because in the Florentine calendar the year began on 25 March. When she married, Maddalena was only about fourteen or fifteen.
Giorgio Vasari, in the second edition of his Lives (1568), recalls that Agnolo, very careful with money in everything else, was willing to spend on painting and sculpture, and that he had Raphael portray himself and his wife. Vasari adds that in his own day the portraits were still in the family house on Corso de’ Tintori. Agnolo also commissioned Michelangelo’s famous Doni Tondo, the Holy Family now in the Uffizi.
Since 5 June 2018 the two portraits have been displayed at the Uffizi next to the Tondo, on new supports that also allow visitors to see the back of the panels. Every year on 31 January the museum celebrates the “Festa dei Doni”, dedicated to couples.
2. Leonardo’s lesson
The pose of the Mona Lisa
Maddalena’s portrait clearly echoes the structure of the Mona Lisa, which Leonardo had begun in Florence around 1503: a half-length figure in three-quarter view, hands resting one on the other in the foreground, a landscape in the background. Raphael, however, does not copy him outright; he adapts Leonardo’s lesson to his own way of painting.
| Element | Raphael, Maddalena Strozzi | Leonardo, Mona Lisa |
|---|---|---|
| Pose | Half-length, three-quarter view, crossed hands | Half-length, three-quarter view, crossed hands |
| Light and outlines | Clear, even light; crisp outlines | Sfumato, extremely soft transitions |
| Landscape | Bright, legible hills of Umbrian taste | Remote, atmospheric landscape |
| Details | Meticulous rendering of fabrics and jewels | Plain dress, no jewellery |
| Effect | A social portrait: rank, wealth, marriage | An enigmatic, almost universal portrait |
“Flemish” precision
The attention to surfaces (the sheen of silk, the translucency of the pearl, the skin of the face) also reveals an interest in Netherlandish painting, much admired by Florentine collectors. The result is a typically Raphaelesque balance: the monumental structure comes from Leonardo, the clarity of light and the serenity of the landscape from his Umbrian training.
A diptych in dialogue
The two portraits were conceived as a pair, probably joined as a diptych and intended for the bridal chamber of the house on Corso de’ Tintori. Placed side by side, the two figures turn towards each other and the clouded sky seems to continue from one panel to the other, as if the couple stood before the same landscape. Agnolo, with his direct and slightly stern gaze, expresses the confidence of a businessman; Maddalena, more composed, has a reserved, almost restrained expression.
Portrait and social identity
In the Renaissance a portrait did not only serve to remember a face. It was a social document: it said who you were, which family you belonged to, what position you held in the city. For a merchant like Agnolo, being portrayed by the most promising painter of the moment meant asserting his own prestige alongside the ancient prestige of the Strozzi family. This is why Raphael paints the psychological character of his sitters and the outward signs of their rank with equal care.
3. Jewels, fabrics and symbols
Maddalena’s portrait is a small treatise on Renaissance fashion. The young woman wears a silk dress with wide damask sleeves, in the Florentine fashion of the time. Around her neck hangs a precious pendant: a gold jewel in the shape of a unicorn set with a ruby, an emerald, a sapphire and a large pearl, very likely a wedding gift from Agnolo. In medieval and Renaissance symbolism the unicorn is associated with chastity and the pearl with purity. The stones, which Agnolo loved to collect, also speak of wealth and taste.
The rings both spouses wear complete the message: these are marriage portraits that celebrate an alliance between families and the fertility expected from the union.
4. The back of the panels: the Flood and the rebirth of humanity
On the back of the two panels, painted in monochrome, are two mythological scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Behind Agnolo’s portrait is the Flood with which the gods punish humanity; behind Maddalena’s, the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only survivors, who repopulate the earth by throwing stones over their shoulders. The message is clear: a new lineage will be born from the couple.
These scenes are not by Raphael. The Uffizi Galleries attribute them to a colleague of the young painter who remains anonymous and is identified with the so-called Master of Serumido, a figure reconstructed by the art historian Federico Zeri by grouping works of similar style.
5. Where the Doni Portraits fit in Raphael’s career
These two panels capture the moment when Raphael absorbs Leonardo without losing his own identity. They also open a series of Florentine portraits, such as the so-called Pregnant Woman in Palazzo Pitti, that set a new model for portraits of the urban elite. And they remind us how much private patrons mattered in the Renaissance art market: at the Uffizi, in the same room, you can see Raphael and Michelangelo working for the same family.
6. Italian language workshop (B1-B2)
Glossary of Renaissance fashion
- Damasco (damask): a fine fabric with shiny patterns on a matt ground, named after the city of Damascus.
- Gamurra: a Florentine woman’s dress of the 15th-16th centuries, with a fitted bodice and a full skirt.
- Maniche staccabili (detachable sleeves): in the Renaissance sleeves were laced to the bodice and could be changed.
- Pendente (pendant): a jewel hanging from a chain or ribbon.
- Dittico (diptych): a work made of two panels conceived as a pair.
- Monocromo (monochrome): a painting in a single colour in different shades.
Grammar: Italian relative pronouns
- che (subject or direct object): Il gioiello che Maddalena porta è un dono di nozze.
- cui (after a preposition): La famiglia da cui proviene Maddalena è quella degli Strozzi.
- il cui / la cui (“whose”): Maddalena, la cui veste è di seta, guarda verso lo spettatore. Note that the article agrees with the thing possessed (la veste), not with the owner.
- il quale / la quale (formal or for clarity): Agnolo Doni, il quale commissionò anche il Tondo a Michelangelo, era un mercante.
Exercise
Fill in the correct relative pronoun.
- Il pittore ____ ha dipinto il retro è rimasto anonimo.
- Il museo ____ si trovano i ritratti è agli Uffizi.
- Agnolo, ____ passione erano le pietre preziose, collezionava gemme antiche.
- Il mito ____ parla Ovidio racconta la rinascita dell’umanità.
Answers: 1. che; 2. in cui; 3. la cui; 4. di cui.
Speaking or writing task
Describe in Italian the clothes of a person in a family photo, using at least three different relative pronouns. It will help you with the speaking test of B1-B2 exams.
A marriage and an apprenticeship
The Doni Portraits tell the story of a Florentine marriage and, at the same time, of a young painter who looks hard at Leonardo and finds his own voice. If you want to read Italian art and improve your Italian along the way, book a private online lesson at my-italian-teacher.ch. The courses are in preparation and the waiting list is open; in the meantime you can follow the free A1 grammar course on the blog.
Recommended reading and resources
- Raffaello a Firenze. Dipinti e disegni delle collezioni fiorentine, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Pitti, Electa. View on Amazon
- Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists (1568 edition), in an annotated translation. View on Amazon
- Roger Jones, Nicholas Penny, Raphael, Yale University Press. View on Amazon
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Sources
- Uffizi Galleries, Portraits of Agnolo and Maddalena Doni; the Flood and Deucalion and Pyrrha (dates of birth and marriage, Vasari quotation, Master of Serumido, 2018 display)
- Finestre sull’Arte, the new Room 41 at the Uffizi dedicated to Michelangelo and Raphael
- La Voce di New York, on the “Festa dei Doni” and Marzia Faietti’s account (unicorn pendant, scenes on the back)
- Giorgio Vasari, Life of Raphael (1568), text online
