Leonardo, Mona Lisa, 1503-06

Mona Lisa is named for Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Leonardo has used a technique known as Sfumato - the blurring of sharp edges by blending colours - to leave the corners of the eyes and the mouth in shadow. It is this technique that makes the Mona Lisa's expression ambiguous.

Sandro Boticelli, Male Portrait, 1475

The man, who is probably a member or a supporter of the Medici family, is gazing at the observer and holding up a medal bearing the profile of the head of Cosimo de' Medici. The medal can position the painting in the paragone debate. Botticelli set the medal into the painting as a gilded plaster cast.

Titian, Cardinal Filippo Archinto, 1558

The curtain is integral to the portrait and has not been superimposed on it; it seems to refer to Archinto's abortive appointment as archbishop of Milan, since the episcopal ring on the right hand is exposed.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Giovanna Tornabuoni, 1488-90

Based on a fresco in the Tornabuoni Chapel, where Giovanna is depicted as an entire figure witnessing the Visitation. Giovanna Tornabuoni, a member of one of the most powerful families in quattrocento Florence, is idealized to the extent of becoming an "icon" of beauty. Her reserved beauty is fittingly expressed in the formal clarity of the composition.

Sandro Boticelli, Giuliano de Medici, 1480

Unique for contemporary Florentine portraiture – it was very unusual for portraits to be composed with a view from or to the outside landscape. Botticelli has painted Giuliano in front of an open door, which in Florentine humanistic symbolism meaning death or the passage from life to the hereafter.

Sandro Botticelli, Female portrait, 1471

It portrays Smeralda Bandinelli, grandmother of the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli (the son of Michelangelo). The portrait is thought to be the first example of a three-quarters pose in Florentine portrait painting. By abandoning the profile pose traditionally used in depictions of Renaissance women, Botticelli brought a new sense of movement into the portrait.

Antonello da Messina, Male Portrait, 1475

Among Antonello's portraits, it is among the most expressively animated ones. The subject, a young man, is drawn from a quite near point of view, with the usual skill in details rendering.

Gerard d’Orleons, Portrait of King Jean le Bon, 1364

The earliest example of French portraiture. The painter's brush is used with remarkable assurance, obviously practised in the creation of larger compositions as well. Without the inscription above his head 'Jehan, roi de France', one would hardly imagine it the portrait of a royal personage, a king whose life was full of vicissitudes, ruling during the hardships of the Hundred Years' War.

Albrecht Durer, Self-portrait, 1500

His third painted self-portrait; inscribed: 'Thus I, Albrecht Duerer from Nuremburg, painted myself with indelible colours at the age of 28 years.' Although the artist has depicted himself in a Christ-like pose, this was no gesture of blasphemy. It was an acknowledgement that God had made Christ and Man in his own image.

Leon Battista Alberti, Self-portrait, Medal, 1432-34

A large self-portrait medal in bronze, depicting Alberti in strict profile, wearing a classical cloak, as indicated by the knot, and a severe haircut based on classical models.

Filippo Lippi, Woman and Man in profile, 1435-40

This work is groundbreaking on several counts: not least in that it is one of the first Italian portraits set in an interior, but probably also the first double portrait in Italian art. It is thought to depict Lorenzo di Ranieri Scolari and Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who wed in Florence in 1436. Though they are married, decorum dictates that their gazes should not meet.

Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-portrait with her teacher, Bernardino Campi, 1559, Siena

The double portrait depicts her art teacher, who greatly influenced her early works, in the act of painting a portrait of her. In this painting she makes herself larger and more central to the picture and shows her teacher using a mahlstick (to steady the hand), which some scholars think portrays his lesser ability or his lack of confidence. Thus, Anguissola may have simply intended to portray her master as helping to "create" her, while at the same time indicating that she did go on to become greater than he.

Pisanello, Portrait of an Este Princess, 1435-40

The subject of the picture has been identified as Ginevra d'Este (a clue being the presence of the juniper, ginepro in Italian). Pisanello used medival patterns in a 'modern' way, though without being familiar with their mathematical model of perspective.

Piero Pollaiuolo, Portrait of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 1471

The identity of the person portrayed is beyond any doubt since there exists a copy of the work bearing Sforza's name. The painting, its rather dark colours unenlivened by any landscape views, plays on the changing colour tones of the materials and on the characteristic physiognomy of its striking protagonist.

Jan van Eyck, Self-portrait, 1433

Van Eyck uses light and shade in a subtle and dramatic way: the sitter seems to emerge from darkness, his face and headdress modelled by the light that falls from the left. The viewer is drawn towards the image by the penetrating gaze of the sitter.

Tomb of Clement IV, (+1268), Viterbo, S. Francesco

The most unusual feature of the tomb is the effigy. It appears to be the first sepulchral effigy in Italy, and certainly reflects French fashion.

Piero della Francesca, Portrait of Duke Federico da Montefeltro, 1472

The face of Federico - with its nose damaged in a joust, thin lips, and protruding jaw - is especially candid. Here, devoid of any hint of spirituality or religious association, is the self-reliant ruler firmly in charge of his destiny. Piero attempts a very difficult compositional construction, that had never been attempted before: he adds an extraordinary landscape that extends so far that its boundaries are lost in the misty distance. The daringness of the composition lies in this sudden switch between such distant perspective planes.

Leonardo, Cecilia Gallerani, 1490

The subject of the portrait is identified as Cecilia Gallerani, and was probably painted at a time when she was the mistress of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan and Leonardo was in the service of the Duke. As in many of Leonardo's paintings, the composition comprises a pyramidic spiral and the sitter is caught in the motion of turning to her left, reflecting Leonardo's life-long preoccupation with the dynamics of movement. The portrait of the Lady with an Ermine was bought by Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski in Italy and incorporated into The Czartoryskis’ family collections in 1800.

Lorenzo Lotto, Portrait of Andrea Odoni, 1527

The subject of the portrait is Andrea Odoni, a Venetian merchant and collector of antiquities who had a palace in the district of Santa Croce. The humanist and antique dealer Andrea Odoni is presented amidst his collection of antiques. This is a lugubrious feast of a portrait, a mournful, sensuous reverie on ancient fragments.

Giovanni Bellini, Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan, 1501-04

The Doge of Venice 1501-21 is shown here wearing his robes of state for this formal portrait. This work is painted in the style of the sculpted portrait busts popular at the time, which were often inspired by Roman sculpture. Bellini signed his name in its Latin form on the cartellino, or 'small paper', on the parapet.