''Imago clipeata'' (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

: "portrait on a round shield") is a term in art usually used in reference to the images of ancestors, famous people or deceased on round shields (in Latin: ''

clipeus In the military of classical antiquity, a ''clipeus'' (, Ancient Greek: ἀσπίς) was a large shield worn by the Greek hoplites and Romans as a piece of defensive armor, which they carried upon the arm, to protect them from the blows of t ...

''). In the Roman world they were used to depict the ancestral family tree in patrician houses of the Republic as described by Pliny (''Historia Naturalis'' 35: 4–11). These shield portraits can be seen in architectural sculptural decorations, on sarcophagi and on standards of the Roman legions among many other types of representations in the Roman and Early Christian world. In Italian Baroque imagery, medallion portraits supported by

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...

s or genii came to signify an

apotheosis Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The term h ...

. In this context they are often called ''tondi''.

References

{{italic title Ancient Roman sculpture Sculpture techniques