Paschal candlestick (detail)

The candlestick rests on an ornamentally carved marble base, so that the bottom plinth is at eye level; it is unashamedly pagan, with four friezes of marine scenes very like Mantegna, other mythological scenes with monstrous creatures, and four large winged sphinxes at the angles. According to a later 16th-century interpretation, the sphinxes represented Astrology, Music, Historiography and Cosmography (geography). Above them are four large panels, three of which show standard themes appropriate to a candlestick that was to be lit on Easter Day: the Adoration of the Magi, Entombment and Descent into Limbo. The last panel, however, depicts a most peculiar, pagan-looking Sacrifice at an Altar Crowned with a Statuette of the Risen Christ, rather than a straightforward depiction of the Resurrection, the event that is crucial in Christian belief and that occurred at Easter.