This fresco is the central part of the apse with the Coronation of the Virgin and saints made by Correggio in 1522 for the Benedictine church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma, where the artist had already done towards the end of 1519 the decoration of the dome with the Vision of St. John on Patmos. The choice of the subject is a tribute to Maria, patroness of the city, who in 1521 had protected Parma from the invasion of French troops. In 1587 the monks, for liturgical needs, enlarged the apse and in order not to sacrifice the Correzian invention they tried to transport it in solid form, commissioning Cesare Aretusi to make a copy for the new basin. The original, reduced only to the figures of Christ and the Virgin, later found a location with the Farnese in the Palazzo della Pilotta. In 1937, during a delicate restoration, the tearing of the plaster revealed the sinopia, the first draft of the subject carried out on the arriccio with a brown brush, still visible in the Incoronata gallery in the Palatine Library. The monumental figures of the two protagonists stand out in the fragment: the Virgin who with grace and naturalness crosses her arms to her chest, tilting her head towards Christ who imposes the starry crown, turning lovingly towards her mother, while the dove of the holy spirit underlines the sacredness of the gesture. Compared to the sinopia, Correggio's original idea was partially modified in the final fresco, revealing a long-thought-out solution, executed for large and confident brushstrokes, fully exploiting the purity and transparency of the colors, even for the shaded parts. .