The Bentivoglio became the dominant family in Bologna in the fifteenth century, remaining in power until 1506, when Pope Julius II, backed by an army and spiritual sanctions, induced Giovanni II Bentivoglio to flee with his family into exile. Interestingly enough, the Kress Collection in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C., possesses magnificent portraits of this Giovanni, and of his wife Ginevra Sforza, painted by Ercole de'Roberti of Ferrara. The Bentivoglio family and its connections, however, is generally neglected by historians of ‘The Italian Renaissance,’ in large measure because Bologna itself is ignored. Yet almost thirty years ago a scholarly study by Cecilia M. Ady, The Bentivoglio of Bologna: a study in despotism sought to redress this, providing adequate evidence of the importance of the family for the understanding of Italian politics in the Renaissance period.