If the patronage of humanists allowed a patron, whether a cardinal or not, to demonstrate magnificence and liberality, it also allowed him to be celebrated for posterity in their works. There were also other, more visual, ways for a cardinal to ensure that his name was not forgotten: he could build palaces or endow chapels, churches or monasteries and have them decorated, commemorating his donation through inscriptions, coats of arms or portraits (either painted or sculpted) of himself. In Rome, on the façade of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, is an inscription which proclaims the status and wealth of Cardinal Riario, and the Carafa Chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva commemorates its patron (Cardinal Carafa) in the same way through its altarpiece and frescoes. At Santa Sabina Cardinal Sauli had the roof of the north wing of the cloister replaced and his coat of arms fixed in the vault. The walls were decorated with frescoes, including one of Sauli kneeling before the Virgin and St Dominic, and although these frescoes have been lost, the coat of arms remains and to this day Sauli's name is known to any inquiring visitor to that part of the convent.

Alternatively, a cardinal could have his portrait painted. In general portraits of individuals in the late quattrocento and early cinquecento had three possible functions: they could be memorial, commissioned either in life or after death and displayed in the home or in public to keep alive the memory of the sitter, as for example Botticelli's Giuliano de' Medici.