Focus on Alba Madonna and explain the Description.
John the Baptist is holding up a cross to Jesus, which the baby Jesus is grasping. All three figures are contemplating the cross, which is being accepted by Jesus as a token of the Crucifixion. The three figures are grouped to the left in the round design, but the image is balanced by the outstretched left arm of the Madonna holding a book, and the billowing material of her cloak, with the figures arranged in a pyramidal composition. Arranged about the figures are symbolic flowers: lady's bedstraw for childbirth, cyclamen for love and sorrow, violets for humility, dandelions and red-centred anemones for the Passion of Jesus.
The tondo painting, on a round wood panel with diameter 94.5 cm (37.2 in), was commissioned by Paolo Giovio, after Raphael had left Florence in 1508 to live in Rome.  The painting show development from his earlier work, perhaps inspired by the Sistine Chapel ceiling then being painted by Michelangelo.
Art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon has described the painting as "a breathtakingly beautiful work of art", linking her position on the ground to the iconography of the Madonna of Humility, but "her statuesque grandeur calls to mind earlier Renaissance images of the Madonna della Misericordia – images of the Virgin as Queen of Heaven and protectress of all humanity."
Jesus Raphael cyclamen dandelion Sistine Chapel ceiling John the Baptist violets Andrew Graham-Dixon Madonna of Humility Passion of Jesus Madonna della Misericordia the Passion anemone tondo Paolo Giovio lady's bedstraw Michelangelo wood panel the Crucifixion