Leonello d'Este

Giovanni da Oriolo's portrait of Leonello d'Este, painted around 1447 and now in the National Gallery London, is among the finest profile portraits from Ferrara's brilliant Este court — a cultural center that rivaled Florence and Milan in its literary and artistic ambitions during the mid-fifteenth century. Leonello d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara, was one of the most cultivated princes of the Italian Renaissance, a student of the humanist Guarino da Verona, patron of Leon Battista Alberti, and himself an author.

Tempera on panel. The marquis is shown in strict left profile against a plain blue-green ground, wearing a richly embroidered doublet. The profiling creates a quasi-medallic effect, consciously referencing ancient Roman coin portraits that humanists valued as models of commemorative portraiture.