The Smithsonian offers a great one-hour "introductory" tour where they tell you all the background of about 10 paintings. Here are my favorite:

Ginevra de' Benci, c.1474/1478

Leonardo da Vinci

Likely an engagement portrait (to a wealthy man at least twice her age), this features a juniper tree. The Italian word for juniper is "ginepro", which is perhaps a pun on her first name. It is also a Italian Renaissance symbol for chastity. According to Wikipedia, the museum paid $5 million for it in 1967. It's oil on wood, and the only da Vinci in the Western Hemisphere.

This is the back of the portrait's wooden panel. VIRTUTEM FORMA DECORAT means Beauty adorns virtue. It sounds to me like this painting was sent to her future husband to assure him she would indeed be a great trophy wife...



Further evidence that money doesn't by happiness. This is Lorenzo de' Medici, who escaped assassination in 1478. Wax portrait statutes of him were placed in churches throughout Florence to celebrate his survival and may have been used as models for this terracotta bust. But he certainly doesn't LOOK to thrilled to be alive, does he?