Cosimo II de’ Medici with his wife, Maria Maddalena of Austria and their son, Ferdinando II

This family had been broken up by death long before Sustermans gathered it onto one canvas. Cosimo the Second, grand duke of Tuscany, died in 1621 at only 30. His wife, Maria Maddalena of Austria, outlived him by a decade. Their son Ferdinando the Second, shown here as a boy, was the one who grew up to rule. When the group was painted around 1650, all three were reconstructed from memory and earlier likenesses rather than from life, a dynasty assembled for the record. Cosimo is worth a second look. He had been the pupil and patron of Galileo, who named the four moons he found circling Jupiter the Medicean Stars in his honour.