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| Giotto St Francis preaching to the Birds ca. 1297-99 tempera on panel Musée du Louvre |
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| Giotto Death of the Virgin ca. 1310 tempera on panel Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
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| Giotto St Stephen ca. 1320-25 tempera on panel Museo Horne, Florence |
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| Vitale da Bologna St George slaying the Dragon ca. 1330-35 tempera on panel Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna |
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| Anonymous Sienese Artist Book Cover for Civic Accounts showing Chancellor, Clerk, and Purveyor 1343 tempera on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Andrea di Nerio Birth of St John the Baptist ca. 1350-80 tempera on panel Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon |
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| Giovanni da Milano Appearance of the Virgin to St Bernard ca. 1355-60 tempera on panel Palazzo Pretorio, Prato |
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| Giovanni del Biondo Christ in the Tomb ca. 1370-90 tempera on panel (predella fragment) Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
"The first step in the making of a tempera painting was the construction of the panels. Once joined and framed by the carpenter, the panels, of finely morticed and sanded poplar, linden, or willow wood, were taken to the painter's shop. They were then spread with gesso, a mixture of finely ground plaster and animal glue. Sometimes the gesso was covered with a surface of linen soaked in gesso and still more gesso was applied to the linen. When dry, the final gesso surface could be given a finish as smooth as ivory. Then came the procedure of drawing, whose exact role in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries is still debated among scholars. Relatively few Italian drawings dating before the 1430s are preserved, and quite a number of these are apparently leaves from artists' pattern books that represent copies of works of art, models for standard compositions, and drawings of animals, birds, figures, and heads. . . . In panel paintings of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and early fifteenth centuries, the backgrounds behind the figures and the haloes around the heads of saints were almost invariably gold leaf, applied in sheets over a red sizing or glue called bole. Lines incised around the contours of the figures and haloes guided the gilder. In many paintings the edges of the sheets can still be made out, and as the gold leaf tends to wear off with rubbing, damaged backgrounds often display areas of the underlying red. Gold was used because of its precious and beautiful character and because its luminosity suggested the light of Heaven. . . . When the gilding of the background was complete, the painter could proceed with underpainting, usually in terra verde (green earth) for the flesh, but even the drapery was often outlined in this color. When the underpainting was completed, the artist would build up the actual painting in layer after thin layer of tempera – ground colors mixed with egg yolk as a vehicle. Yolk of egg dries rapidly and becomes extremely hard, and as a result, the painter could not easily change a form or correct mistakes. The strokes, applied with a sharply pointed brush of gray squirrel hairs, had to be accurate, neat, and final."
– Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art, originally published in 1969, revised by David G. Wilkins and reissued by Abrams in 1993
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| Antonio Veneziano St James the Greater ca. 1385-88 tempera on panel Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
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| Gregorio di Cecco The Crucifixion ca. 1410-20 tempera on panel Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon |
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| Gregorio di Cecco The Crucifixion (detail) ca. 1410-20 tempera on panel Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon |
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| Masaccio Virgin and Child ca. 1424-25 tempera on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Fra Angelico The Annunciation ca. 1425-28 tempera on panel Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Fra Angelico The Last Judgment ca. 1431 tempera on panel Museo Nazionale di San Marco, Florence |
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| Fra Angelico Coronation of the Virgin ca. 1434-35 tempera on panel Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence |