Tempera on panel
Museo Diocesano, Cortona, Italy

According to the one section of the Golden Legend, "St. Thomas was not there [at the Assumption], and when he came he would not believe this. And anon the girdle with which her body was girt came to him from the air, which he received, and thereby he understood that she was assumpt into heaven."

The flowers in the sarcophagus and the musical instruments refer to the "marvellous odour" and "voice of angels" that another section of the Legend describes at the time of the Assumption.

Bartolomeo intended the two figures in the foreground as St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, but when the painting came into the possession of the Servants of Mary they had the figures repainted to represent two of their own saints, Filippo Benizzi and Giuliana Falconeri.

More of the Assumption
More of St. Thomas