Portrait of Giovanni II Bentivoglio

Portrait of Giovanni II Bentivoglio at the Uffizi Gallery shows Costa's most important patron at the height of his power. Giovanni II ruled Bologna as a de facto prince despite the city's nominal status as a papal possession, and his portrait commission to Costa represented both personal vanity and dynastic assertion. Costa had painted the Bentivoglio family in the altarpiece, but this independent portrait placed the lord in a format more directly associated with northern Italian court portraiture. The Uffizi's holding places this Bologna Renaissance portrait within the broader context of Florentine and Italian Renaissance painting that the gallery surveys.

Costa employs the three-quarter view standard in northern Italian Renaissance portraiture, with Giovanni presented against a neutral dark ground that concentrates attention on the sitter's face and clothing. The surface is carefully finished, with specific attention to the textures of fabric and the modelling of the face's planes.