The Presentation of the Virgin

Daniele da Volterra and his workshop frescoed a tomb chapel for Lucrezia della Rovere in the Roman church of Santissima Trinità dei Monti. The Marian program of the decoration is tailored to the woman who commissioned it; the worries, plights, joys, achievements, and heavenly rewards of women are depicted. Each of the three walls is filled from floor to cornice with a single large narrative scene. On the side walls one finds painted balustrades below, from which steps seem to lead up out of the chapel to the stage on which the story takes place. The left balustrade, in front of the terrible scene of the Massacre of the Innocents, is closed; the one on the right, before the exemplary Presentation of the Virgin, is open.