The Lamentation of Christ

Joseph of Arithmea, a rich man and disciple of Jesus, requested the crucified body from the Roman governor. Accompanied by Mary, he took Christ’s corpse and “wrapped him in pure linen and placed him in his new grave which he had had hewn in a rock”. The crown of thorns and the tools of suffering in the angels’ hands remind us of various moments in Christ’s Passion. Cigoli’s work represents the complex stylistic cross-currents in the period of transition from Manierism to Baroque.