The remarkable work depicting the Immaculate Conception, an oil painting on canvas (approx. 209x152 cm) from the late sixteenth century, was donated to the Diocesan Museum by Monsignor Pietro Amato and attributed by him to Juan de Roelas (Flanders ca. 1570 - Olivares 1625) clergyman priest painter. The precious gift represents a gesture of affection from Monsignor Amato towards Molfetta, his hometown, to which he has always remained attached, despite the Lord calling him to carry out the priestly ministry worldwide. The exquisite canvas, a work by one of the most notable artists of Sevillian painting from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, has been placed in the ancient Pinacoteca hall. A sign that expresses the attachment to the roots linked to Monsignor Amato's birth and upbringing. Molfetta is the city where the priestly vocation took its first steps, illuminated by important figures such as his mother, Vincenza Immacolata Facchini, and Don Cosmo Azzollini, who with their example and testimony have forever marked the life of Don Pietro, as a man and as a priest. And it is on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of his dear mother's birth that Don Pietro wanted to offer the work depicting the Immaculate Virgin, which almost represents a prayer materialized directed to the heavenly Mother in suffrage of the earthly one.

The artist represents with an unusual language an unpublished and splendid iconography of the Immaculate Conception. The Sine macula, of the Tota Pulchra type, is depicted in the midst of tongues of fire, an iconography that refers to the biblical burning bush of Moses, a bush that burned but was not consumed (Ex. 3,2). Juan de Roelas presents the Marian attribute with a serene, flat, and persuasive image. The burning and purifying bush, a flame that does not consume, is depicted as the ideal container for the Immaculate Mother of God. The iconological reading of the numerous symbols presents the figure of the Immaculate in its different aspects: victorious palm; triumphant olive tree; vine; cypress announcing death; lily; rose, whose beauty is intact and pure. Ivory and tall tower. City of God reached through the gate of heaven.

Roelas depicts the Sine macula, as the New Eve, the Mother of the living: she is the Virgin who tramples the serpent, with the deadly apple in her mouth and dilated and reddened pupils due to suffering; she is the apocalyptic Woman, with her feet on the half moon and her head crowned with twelve stars; she is the Purest, with a white starry tunic, a blue mantle, and her head covered by a light veil, fluttering in the crackling breeze; she is the graceful and tender maiden of Nazareth, created according to post-Tridentine iconographic repertoires. The other Marian attributes are arranged on both sides. On the left side, from bottom to top: the mirror, the enclosed garden, the fountain, the ivory tower, the palm tree, and the cypress; on the right side: the well, the cedar, the gate of heaven, and the city of God.

The content of the central figure of the painting, rich in doctrine and erudition, reveals characteristics that are typical of a cultured, refined, and even elegant artist. The attribution of the work to Juan de Roelas comes precisely from these cultural and pictorial clues. It is a young Roelas, who will change significantly throughout his vast production, particularly after a possible trip to Italy, especially to Venice, believed to have taken place after the seventeenth century. The pictorial style and iconography, especially the halo with the twelve stars, are remnants of the sixteenth century and recall an Italian Renaissance tradition, revisited and kept alive by Flemish and Spanish painters who frequented central and southern Italy. Roelas had contacts with these painters and with this environment dominated by archaic artistic ideas, of a mannerist nature.