This study demonstrates that, contrary to present scholarly opinion, Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benciwas probably not commissioned by Bernardo Bembo. Close analysis of the painting (including reconsideration of its original format), and of the dating of Bembo's manuscripts bearing an emblem resembling the portrait's reverse, leads the author to reorder the chronology of Bembo's connection with Ginevra's portrait and to propose that Bembo claimed the preexisting emblem of his Florentine platonic beloved for political purposes. Ginevra's own role in the afterlife of her portrait is considered, in the light of new biographical information about her and in the context of women's history in fifteenth-century Italy.