Book excerpt: The National Gallery of Art houses the single most important collection of portrait medals in the United States. This two-volume catalogue examines in depth these holdings, comprising more than nine hundred medals. Providing detailed technical information--including the alloy composition of each medal--drawn from careful research, observation, and analysis, Renaissance Medals breaks new ground in the scholarly literature. Volume 2 documents the Gallery's collection of German medals of the sixteenth century, French baroque medals, and smaller, though no less significant, groups of Netherlandish and English medals.