Tomb of St. Peter Martyr: Detail: translation of the saint (Balduccio, 1336-39)

Giovanni di Balduccio, Tomb of St. Peter Martyr: Detail, the Translation

1336-39
Marble
Portinari Chapel
Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio

This relief shows Peter Martyr's body being interred in the very sarcophagus on which it is sculpted! In 1340 it was transferred from the casket of 1253 (pictured on the front of this sarcophagus) into the present "new and solemn" one, in a ceremony conducted by the archbishop, Giovanni Visconti. Also attending were the the Dominican order's Master and numerous friars, cathedral officials, and secular "princes and nobles" (Acta Sanctorum, April vol. 3, 683). In the relief, Visconti is in the top row, third from the left, wearing a mitre. Five women kneel in the first row in the foreground and two more stand in the second row on the left. Some of the men wear collars, others cowls; presumably the former are the nobles and the latter the Dominicans and cathedral officials.

At the corners are statues of two of the Doctors of the Church, St. Gregory the Great on the left and St. Jerome on the right.

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Photographed at the chapel by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.