The retable belonged to the church of San Francesco (attribution on a documentary basis by P. Olivo), documented since the 13th century. The work is attributed to the Catalan area (first half of the fifteenth century). The retable originally consisted of three panels, of which the central one and the right door have come down to us.

The triptych is a tempera with a golden background, with twisted columns that mark the pictorial panels, divided into two compartments. In the central panel is the Virgin nursing the Child, on a throne among musician Angels; above a dramatic Crucifixion, in which the last act of the Passion of Christ is narrated, with the lamentation of the Virgin and the Pious Women, the division of Christ's garments, the armed guard to the crucifixes, the offering to Jesus of a sponge soaked in vinegar. The right door presents in the lower scene a young Saint Martin standing on his horse, while with the sword he cut a flap of his precious cloak to cover the naked Christ-beggar who in a grateful attitude looks at the holy knight. In the upper scene the story of the Saint is narrated, having abandoned the family glories, he is consecrated bishop of Tours under the sails of a Gothic cross chapel, between four bishops and those present at the ceremony.

With an act dated May 24, 1565, transcribed in the Llibre de Concelleria of the year 1564-1565, the master Antioco Mainas, painter of the city of Cagliari, undertook to paint a retable representing the Virgin and Child for the chapel of the Municipal house of Oristano, flanked by Saints Andrew and John the Baptist, and the five councilors in office for that year, including the councilor in chief, Giovanni Dessì. The document shows that the retable was made up of six compartments and a predella with seven panels. Of the polyptych remain the central table with the Virgin between Saints Andrew and John the Baptist and a Deposition of Christ, formerly of the Piloni collection of Cagliari and now of the University of Cagliari. The Catalan theme of Our Lady of the Counselors is translated by Mainas into modern forms, nourished by the Raphaelesque lesson that the painter from Cagliari was able to assume thanks to the circulation in the Sardinian pictorial workshops of prints and drawings that contributed to the updating of the figurative culture of the Sardinian masters. The monumental forms of the enthroned Virgin and in particular the chubby Child are derived in Mainas from the Holy Family of Raphael, through a print by Marcantonio Raimondi (Renata Serra).

The retable of the Holy Christ originally belonged to the Oristano convent church consecrated to the Saint of Assisi.

It was paid in 1533 by the Minors of Oristano to the painter Pietro Cavaro of Stampace (Appendices of Cagliari).

Cavaro, born in Stampace from a family of painters, with a workshop since the fifteenth century, had an education between Barcelona, where he is enrolled in the gremio of painters in 1508, and Naples, where he may have married the Catalan widow Joana Godiel in his first marriage. The polyptych is divided between the Sacristy of the church of San Francesco with the central altarpiece and the Arborense Antiquarium with four lateral compartments and five predella or polvaroli compartments. The Stigmata compartment shows the saint kneeling in the act of receiving Christ's wounds, immersed in a Flemish landscape of steep hills crowned by dark trees, on which stands a church with a convent, in the background of a sky full of clouds white and gray, open on the crucified Christ darting Francis. The four lateral compartments depict in learned conversation the Saints Catherine and Apollonia, Bernardino and Ludovico da Tolosa, Stefano and Nicola di Bari, Antonio da Padova and Bonaventura. Finally, the five minor panels, belonging to the predella or to the polvaroli, represent the holy Franciscan martyrs of Morocco, Accursio, Pietro, Adiuto, Ottone and Bernardo.

The retable of the Holy Christ originally belonged to the Oristano convent church consecrated to the Saint of Assisi.

It was paid in 1533 by the Minors of Oristano to the painter Pietro Cavaro of Stampace (Appendices of Cagliari).

Cavaro, born in Stampace from a family of painters, with a workshop since the fifteenth century, had an education between Barcelona, where he is enrolled in the gremio of painters in 1508, and Naples, where he may have married the Catalan widow Joana Godiel in his first marriage. The polyptych is divided between the Sacristy of the church of San Francesco with the central altarpiece and the Arborense Antiquarium with four lateral compartments and five predella or polvaroli compartments. The Stigmata compartment shows the saint kneeling in the act of receiving Christ's wounds, immersed in a Flemish landscape of steep hills crowned by dark trees, on which stands a church with a convent, in the background of a sky full of clouds white and gray, open on the crucified Christ darting Francis. The four lateral compartments depict in learned conversation the Saints Catherine and Apollonia, Bernardino and Ludovico da Tolosa, Stefano and Nicola di Bari, Antonio da Padova and Bonaventura. Finally, the five minor panels, belonging to the predella or to the polvaroli, represent the holy Franciscan martyrs of Morocco, Accursio, Pietro, Adiuto, Ottone and Bernardo.