Famous Renaissance paintings: 12 works to know and where to see them

Famous Renaissance paintings hang in museums, a monastery and a papal chapel across Europe, from London to Kraków. This guide lists 12 of them in date order, from Piero della Francesca's portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino in the 1470s to Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow of 1565. Each date is the one the holding museum gives. Six of the twelve are portraits, and three include animals. If you want to learn how to recognize the style itself, our guide to what makes a Renaissance painting explains it.

What is the most famous Renaissance painting?

The Louvre in Paris calls the Mona Lisa the world's most famous painting. The museum links its fame to Leonardo's skill, the sitter's smile, the imagined landscape behind her, and sfumato, a way of blurring outlines with thin, see-through layers of paint. The theft of the painting in 1911 made it even better known. It is number 6 in the list below.

The 1400s: Urbino, Florence and Milan

1. The Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Piero della Francesca, 1473 to 1475 (Uffizi Galleries, Florence). Federico da Montefeltro and his wife Battista Sforza face each other in profile, on two small oil panels. The Uffizi says the side view came from the design of ancient coins. Behind them is the hilly land of the Marches, the region they ruled. Battista's pale skin followed the fashion of the time, and the museum says it may also point to her early death in 1472.

2. The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli, the 1480s (Uffizi Galleries, Florence). Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, stands on a large scallop shell while the winds blow her to the shore of Cyprus. The Uffizi says a member of the Medici family probably ordered it, and the orange trees in the picture were a Medici emblem. No written record of it survives from before 1550, when Giorgio Vasari described it at the Medici villa of Castello.

3. Lady with an Ermine, Leonardo da Vinci, 1490, a date the museum marks as approximate (National Museum in Kraków). The sitter is Cecilia Gallerani, a lady-in-waiting at the court of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. She holds an ermine. The museum says the animal points to the duke, who received the Order of the Ermine from the King of Naples in 1488 and was nicknamed "White Ermine". Leonardo painted her in a three-quarter view, turning toward someone outside the frame, at a time when most portraits showed the sitter in profile. It is one of just over a dozen surviving portraits by Leonardo.

4. The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci, 1495 to 1498 (Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan). Leonardo painted it on a wall of the dining hall of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The museum says he painted on dry plaster, a method that let him work slowly and make changes. In 1980 UNESCO listed the painting, the church and the monastery as a World Heritage Site.

1500 to 1512: Dürer, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael

5. Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe, Albrecht Dürer, 1500 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). Dürer faces the viewer straight on. The museum says he based the pose on icons of Christ, while the details of the face and clothes are his own. A Latin line on the panel reads, in English, "I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg portrayed myself in appropriate colours aged twenty-eight years".

6. Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci, 1503 to 1519 (Louvre, Paris). The sitter is Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The Louvre's record says Leonardo probably began the portrait for her husband, then kept it for the rest of his life to go on working on it. It was still unfinished when he died.

7. The Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo, 1508 to 1512 (Vatican Museums, Vatican City). On 8 May 1508 Michelangelo signed a contract with Pope Julius II to paint twelve apostles and some decoration. The Vatican Museums say he called that plan a "poor thing", and the pope then let him plan the whole scheme. In the centre are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis. The pope said Mass in the finished chapel on 1 November 1512.

8. The School of Athens, Raphael, 1508 to 1511 (Vatican Museums, Vatican City). Raphael painted it on a wall of the Room of the Segnatura, the library and private office of Pope Julius II. The Vatican Museums say the frescoes (wall paintings) in this room were Raphael's first work in the Vatican. In the centre, Plato points upward beside Aristotle. The philosopher Heraclitus, leaning on a block of marble, is a portrait of Michelangelo, who was painting the Sistine Chapel nearby. The man in the black beret at the far right is Raphael himself.

After 1530: court portraits and a winter scene

9. The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533 (National Gallery, London). Jean de Dinteville, sent to England by King Francis I of France, stands on the left. His friend Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, stands on the right. Inscriptions give their ages as 28 and 24. Seen from one angle, the long shape between their feet turns into a skull. The gallery says Holbein seldom signed his work, and the elaborate signature on the floor here suggests he was proud of it.

10. Venus of Urbino, Titian, 1538 (Uffizi Galleries, Florence). It shows a young bride as Venus, lying on a bed, and the sleeping dog at her feet stands for faithfulness in marriage. A letter of 1538 records that Guidobaldo II della Rovere bought it from Titian. It came to Florence later, as part of the dowry of Vittoria della Rovere when she married Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici.

11. Eleonora di Toledo with her son Giovanni, Bronzino, 1545 (Uffizi Galleries, Florence). Bronzino was painting this portrait of the wife of Cosimo I de' Medici in the summer of 1545. The blue background is lapis lazuli, which the Uffizi calls the most expensive pigment, or colour powder, of the time. Her dress is silk brocade with a pattern of pomegranates and pine cones. By then, the museum says, Eleonora had already ruled three times as head of state while Cosimo was away.

12. Hunters in the Snow, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). Hunters walk back to their village with a tired pack of dogs and only one fox on a spear. There are skaters on the frozen ponds. The museum calls it the first and best-known winter landscape in European painting. Bruegel signed and dated it at the bottom centre.

What Renaissance portraits tell you about the sitter

The six portraits above show three ways to place a face. Piero used the profile of an ancient coin. Leonardo turned Cecilia Gallerani three-quarters toward the viewer. Dürer faced the viewer straight on. The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck (1434, National Gallery, London) is another famous portrait from these years, and our Renaissance guide looks at it and its small dog.

Renaissance portraits also used objects to describe a person. The National Gallery says they often included musical instruments, coins, books or flowers, which pointed to the sitter's interests, learning, marriage or faith. Holbein filled a table with them. Bronzino used the most expensive blue and the most expensive fabric of his day to show Eleonora's rank.

Animals carried meaning too: the ermine for the Duke of Milan, the dog for faithfulness in marriage. Our guides to famous paintings of dogs and Renaissance cat paintings follow those animals further.

A royal pet portrait uses the same idea with your dog or cat as the sitter. Purrealism offers a Renaissance Royal style among its 15 royal portrait styles, and you can choose it in the portrait studio.

Where to see these 12 paintings

Painting	Artist	Date	Where
The Duke and Duchess of Urbino	Piero della Francesca	1473 to 1475	Uffizi, Florence, Room A25
The Birth of Venus	Sandro Botticelli	The 1480s	Uffizi, Florence, Room A12
Lady with an Ermine	Leonardo da Vinci	1490 (approximate)	Czartoryski Museum, Kraków
The Last Supper	Leonardo da Vinci	1495 to 1498	Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan
Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe	Albrecht Dürer	1500	Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Room I
Mona Lisa	Leonardo da Vinci	1503 to 1519	Louvre, Paris, Room 711
Sistine Chapel ceiling	Michelangelo	1508 to 1512	Vatican Museums
The School of Athens	Raphael	1508 to 1511	Vatican Museums, Room of the Segnatura
The Ambassadors	Hans Holbein the Younger	1533	National Gallery, London, Room 4
Venus of Urbino	Titian	1538	Uffizi, Florence, Room D22
Eleonora di Toledo with her son Giovanni	Bronzino	1545	Uffizi, Florence, Room D15
Hunters in the Snow	Pieter Bruegel the Elder	1565	Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Room X

The rooms are the ones each museum's page gave in September 2026, so check the page before you travel. The Last Supper can only be seen with a ticket booked ahead.