The Florentines with fair and pleasant gardens; the Umbrians with spacious colonnades, distant landscapes, and rare skies; the Venetians with fruits and garlands of foliage and fruit, and even vegetables, if they had a particular regard for them, as Crivelli had for the cucumber.

One painter only before this time decorated his pictures with nude human figures, Luca Signorelli.

Michael Angelo may have seen a Madonna of his, with two nude figures in the background, executed for Lorenzo de' Medici, and now hung in the Gallery of the Uffizi.

Michael Angelo, who knew the beauty of the human form better than any one, would never be content to decorate his tondo with any less beautiful offering after seeing this picture by Signorelli.

The tondo form was a favourite one with Signorelli.