Painting by Hans Baldung Grien: Death and the Maiden. Baldung may have been a pupil of Dürer. His paintings and prints included a variety of subjects, but he is best known for macabre, erotic allegories involving witches or young women being embraced by death. The inevitability of death was a favorite theme among many North Renaissance artists.

Painting by Raphael: The Transfiguration is the last painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael. Cardinal Giulio de Medici — who later became Pope Clement VII (in office: 1523–1534) — commissioned the work, conceived as an altarpiece for Narbonne Cathedral in France; Raphael worked on it in the years preceding his death in 1520. The painting exemplifies Raphael's development as an artist and the culmination of his career. Unusually for a depiction of the Transfiguration of Jesus in Christian art, the subject is combined with the next episode from the Gospels (the healing of a possessed boy) in the lower part of the painting. The work is now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana in the Vatican City. From the late 16th century until the early 20th century, various commentators regarded it as the most famous oil painting in the world.

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

Painting by Titian: Bacchus and Ariadne, an oil painting that is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro — a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts. An advance payment was given to Raphael, who originally held the commission for the subject of a Triumph of Bacchus. At the time of Raphael's death in 1520, only a preliminary drawing was completed. The commission was then handed to Titian. In the case of Bacchus and Ariadne, the subject matter was derived from the Roman poets Catullus and Ovid, and perhaps other classical authors. The painting, considered one of Titian's greatest works, is now in the National Gallery, London. The other major paintings in the cycle are The Feast of the Gods, mostly by Giovanni Bellini, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C, and Titian's The Bacchanal of the Andrians and The Worship of Venus, both now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. The series was a very early treatment of subjects from classical mythology on a heroic scale in painting, rather than in small decorative pieces, and very influential on later works.

Painting by Parmigianino: Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror, a small painting, only 24.4 cm diameter (9.6 in). The work is mentioned by Late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari, who lists it as one of three small-size paintings that the artist brought to Rome with him in 1525. Vasari relays that the self-portrait was created by Parmigianino as an example to showcase his talent to potential customers. The painting depicts the young artist (then twenty one) in the middle of a room, distorted by the use of a convex mirror. The hand in the foreground is greatly elongated and distorted by the mirror. The work was painted on a specially-prepared convex panel in order to mimic the curve of the mirror used.

Painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder: Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg before Christ on the Cross, a painting executed with oil on firs and measures 158 cm in height and 112 cm in width. Originally belonging to the Collegiate Church of Aschaffenburg, it passed in 1829 to the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, where it is shown with the title Kardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg vor dem Gekreuzigten kniend.

Painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder: Cupid Complaining to Venus is one of 20 similar works by Cranach and his workshop, with the figures in a variety of poses and differing in other details. The Metropolitan Museum of Art notes that the number of extant versions suggests that this was one of Cranach's most successful compositions. This version was acquired by the National Gallery, London in 1963 and is perhaps the earliest example. It depicts two classical gods of love, standing naked amid a verdant landscape under a blue sky. The work has been interpreted as an allegory of the pleasure and pains of love, and possibly also a warning of the risks of venereal disease. The winged infant Cupid stands the left of a tree which bears red apples. He is holding a honeycomb, possibly taken from a hole towards the bottom of the tree's trunk. He is being assailed by honeybees, infuriated by his theft of their sweet treasure. Venus is depicted as a voluptuous woman to the right of the tree. She is holding up a branch with her left hand, and rests her left foot on another. A stone below Venus's raised foot bears an inscription of a winged serpent with a ring in its mouth, a heraldic device granted to Cranach by Frederick the Wise in 1508. Venus is wearing only a hat of red and gold cloth decorated with a wide circle of ostrich plumes, and two necklaces: a gold chain and a jewelled choker. The pose of Venus, and the apples, allude to paintings of Eve by Cranach.

Painting by Parmigianino: Vision of Saint Jerome, was commissioned on 3 January 1526 in Rome, by Maria Bufalini, wife of Antonio Caccialupi, to decorate the family chapel in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. The contract mentioned "Francesco Mazola de Parma" and one "Pietro" with the same name, perhaps Parmigianino's uncle Piero Ilario Mazzola. The elongated shape derives from its original destination as part of a triptych, whose sides (never painted) should represent the Immaculate Conception (to which the chapel was dedicated) and the saints Joachim and Anna. According to late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari, Parmigianino was working to this painting during the Sack of Rome, and he had to stop when the city was ravaged by the imperial troops. He was able to escape paying a ransom, while his uncle remained in Rome, being able to hide the painting in the refectory of Santa Maria della Pace. The painting is divided into two narrative sectors: a lower one, with Saint Jerome is sleeping near the crucifix (with his traditional symbol, the cardinal hat visible near a skull) and receives the vision of St. John the Baptist, identified by the long cross and the baptismal washbasin which is tied at his belt; St. John indicates the Child, represented in the upper sector between the legs of the Madonna, with a shining background behind them. Parmigianino's attention to detail is shown by the Baptist's reed cross, the speckled skin which covers him, the undergrowth near the sleeping Jerome, and the sheen on Mary's dress, the last perhaps inspired by classical sculptures seen by Parmigianino during his trips.

Painting by Hans Holbein, the younger: portrait of Sir Thomas More, an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, amateur theologian, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to May 1532. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, which describes the political system of an imaginary island state. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, directing polemics against the theology of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli and William Tyndale. More also opposed Henry VIII's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason on what he stated was false evidence, and was executed. At his execution, he was reported to have said: "I die the King's good servant, and God's first." Pope Pius XI canonised More in 1935 as a martyr.

Painting by Lorenzo Lotto: The Annunciation, an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto, executed around somewhere between 1527 and 1534 and housed in the Civic Museum of Villa Colloredo Mels, Recanati, Italy. The painting depicts a bedroom where an Annunciation takes place following an unusual scheme: the angel is on the right, holding a white lily, and has got in from a loggia which opens to a garden (the hortus conclusus). His right arm is pointing at the Father God who has shown in a cloud and is blessing Mary from inside the loggia. Mary is portrayed in the left foreground, looking at the spectator and raising her hands in a surprised gesture. Stylistically, Lotto used expressive gestures and somewhat under-size heads. The number of carefully painted details show the influence of Northern European paintings: they include the baldachin bed, the small window with sealed glasses, the shelf with a small still life, the hatstand, the stool with an hourglass, the prie-dieu and a scared cat which is fleeing. The baldachin was inspired by a relief by Andrea Sansovino at Loreto.

Painting by Hans Holbein the Younger: Portrait of the Artist's Family, a portrait of the family of the painter Hans Holbein the Younger by the artist himself. It depicts Holbein's wife Elsbeth Binzenstock, their son Philipp and their daughter Katharina. Holbein painted it during his stay in Basel after his return from England. It was painted, between 1528 and 1529, on paper and glued on wood.

Painting by Jacopo Pontormo: The Deposition from the Cross is an altarpiece, completed in 1528, depicting the Deposition of Christ. It is broadly considered to be the artist's surviving masterpiece. Painted in tempera on wood, it is located above the altar of the Capponi Chapel of the church of Santa Felicita in Florence.

(no entry for this year)