The Doge Leonardo Loredan with four Companions

Bellini's Doge Leonardo Loredan with Four Companions (c. 1507) in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin is a group portrait showing the Doge — Venice's elected head of state — with four of the senior officials who constituted the Republic's governing elite. Leonardo Loredan, elected Doge in 1501, is best known from Bellini's famous single portrait at the National Gallery London, but this group image shows him in the context of collective governance that defined the Venetian constitution. The Republican ideology of Venice required that even the Doge be seen as first among equals rather than absolute monarch, and a group portrait of the Doge with companions embodied this principle of shared governance.

Bellini's late group portrait technique achieves warm atmospheric unity across the multiple figures, using soft, blended modeling and the golden light characteristic of his final period to create a dignified yet approachable official image.