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| attributed to Antonio del Ceraiolo Virgin and Child with St Lawrence and Guardian Angel ca. 1500-1510 oil on panels Pieve di San Martino a Gangalandi, Lastra a Signa |
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| Antonio del Ceraiolo Virgin and Child with Angels ca. 1520 oil on panel York City Art Gallery |
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| Frei Carlos de Lisboa The Good Shepherd ca. 1520-30 oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon |
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| Lucas Cranach the Elder Baptism of Christ ca. 1546 oil on panel Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| Alessandro Fei (il Barbiere) The Flagellation ca. 1575 oil on copper private collection |
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| Garcia Fernandes The Holy Trinity with Saints 1537 oil on canvas Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon |
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| Cristóvão de Figueiredo Martyrdom of St Andrew ca. 1520-30 oil on panel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon |
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| Giorgio da Siena (Giorgio di Giovanni) St Sebastian, St Christopher and St Roch ca. 1527-35 oil on panel private collection |
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| Girolamo dai Libri Virgin and Child Enthroned, with St Bartholomew and St Zeno ca. 1510 oil on panel Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Girolamo dai Libri Virgin and Child with Angel Musicians ca. 1525 oil on panel Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice |
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| Bernardino Luini Christ among the Doctors ca. 1515-30 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Bastiano Mainardi Virgin and Child Enthroned, with St Justus of Volterra and St Margaret of Antioch 1507 oil on panel Indianapolis Museum of Art |
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| Bartolomeo Montagna Virgin and Child Enthroned, with St Bernardino da Feltre, St Francis, and St Catherine of Alexandria ca. 1515 oil on panel Bode Museum, Berlin |
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| Bartolomeo Passarotti Coronation of the Virgin, with St Luke, St Dominic, and St John the Evangelist ca. 1580 oil on canvas Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
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| Ercole Ramazzani The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St John the Evangelist 1585 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Diocesana, Senigallia |
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| Giovanni Maria Tacci Dead Christ supported by Angels 1570 oil on panel (processional standard) Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra di Volterra |
"We have already observed that variety is pleasing to the human mind, and we must farther remark that a certain degree of Symmetry produces also an agreeable effect and contributes to the beauty of the greatest part of those complex productions which we behold with admiration and delight. How shall we reconcile this seeming contradiction! It will vanish if we attend to the following observations."
"One of the principal causes of the pleasure which the mind receives in the contemplation of the various objects that are presented to it, is the facility with which it perceives them. Hence Symmetry is rendered agreeable as its similar arrangements relieve the mind, aid the quickness of its comprehension, and enable it, upon a view of the one half of an object, to form immediately an idea of the whole."
"Upon this observation is founded the following general rule, That where Symmetry is thus useful to the mind, by aiding its comprehension and facilitating its operations and its perceptions, there it is and must always be agreeable; but where it does not produce this effect, it become flat and insipid, because without any good purpose it deprives an object of that variety to which nature has given superior charms."
– Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, from An Essay on Taste (1753), translated by Alexander Gerard (1759)