The Renaissance: the political, intellectual and cultural flowering, especially in the cities of Italy and the Low Countries in the 15th and 16th centuries, but also in France, Germany, and England in the same period.

Portraits first emerged as a major art form in the Renaissance. This is a portrait of Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and his son painted by Pedro Berruguete around 1480.

The great condottiere, Federigo di Montefeltro had summoned Joos van Gent to decorate the library and study of his magnificent palace with allegories of the liberal arts and portraits of Biblical and pagan thinkers. Berruguete may have collaborated with him, but there is no doubt that the allegories and many of the more vigorous portraits of the series are by Berruguete alone.

Moreover, Berruguete also painted the hands of the portrait of Montefeltro in the famous picture by Piero della Francesca in the Brera Gallery, Milan.