Some paintings in the Gallery belong to the category of historical portraits, such as that of Donna Olimpia Panfili, whose physiognomy is taken from the marble bust sculpted by Alessandro Algardi. She is a woman of power, with a strong character that overshadowed even Pope Innocent X, as in this work, which establishes the hierarchy between the characters. The woman is depicted in the monumental canvas by Guglielmo De Sanctis Donna Olimpia Pamphilj and Innocent X in the presence of a cardinal (1891).
Also belonging to this group is the Portrait of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1860) by Salvatore Lo Forte, an idealized portrait of the great leader taken from the famous photo by Gustave Le Gray, who made a stopover in Palermo during his journey to the East with Alexandre Dumas. The two Frenchmen were received by Garibaldi who asked to photograph the city of Palermo devastated by the fighting and commissioned a portrait of him which became a patriotic icon. This portrait shows historical elements, such as the red shirt, strong-willed gaze, broad forehead and reddish beard, but also idealizing elements such as the background of a sky in which the spark of genius lights up.