The body of Christ is about to be placed in a classical sarcophagus, perhaps of that red porphyry reserved for imperial tombs. Magdalene helps Joseph of Arimathea (or Nicodemus), while the Virgin assists contrite. From the background emerge the faces of two other characters and the tomb carved into the rock, described in the Gospel. As in Michelangelo's Pietà Bandini (Florence, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo), the painter favors the essential character of the composition and the dominant, upright and frontal pose of the abandoned body of Christ. The iconic and ostensive value of the work prevails, underlined by Joseph's fixed gaze at the viewer, who invites us to reflect on the sacrifice of Christ, "the stone rejected by the builders" which becomes the "cornerstone" [Psalm 117 (118), 22]. As a corner is the foreshortening at the bottom of the slab destined to close the sarcophagus, here a visual metaphor of the stone on which the new Church rests.