Giovanni Arnolfini

He spent most of his life in Flanders, then part of the Duchy of Burgundy, probably always based in Bruges, a wealthy trading city and one of the main towns of the Burgundian court.

The Arnolfini were a powerful family in Lucca, involved in the politics and trade of the small but wealthy city, which specialised (like Florence) in weaving expensive cloth.

His fame arises because he is the most likely candidate, out of a number of male Arnolfinis, to have been the subject of two portraits by Jan van Eyck, the famous Flemish painter.

On the other hand, Margaret Koster has recently proposed that the double portrait may be a memorial one, including an image of Costanza, but painted a year after her death.

Giovanni de Arrigo Arnolfini married, and was survived by, Giovanna (Jeanne) Cenami, and they were the couple thought to be the shown in the Arnolfini Portrait from 1861 until 1994, when a French naval historian, Jacques Paviot, discovered in the Ducal accounts that the Duke had in 1447 presented two silver pots to "Jehan Arnoulphin" on his marriage – by this time Van Eyck had been dead for six years.