Persistent homology analysis, a recently developed computational method in algebraic topology, is applied to the study of the phase transitions undergone by the so-called mean-field XY model and by the ϕ^{4} lattice model, respectively. For both models the relationship between phase transitions and the topological properties of certain submanifolds of configuration space are exactly known. It turns out that these a priori known facts are clearly retrieved by persistent homology analysis of dynamically sampled submanifolds of configuration space.