This panel is an autograph, small-scale replica of an altarpiece painted in 1566-7 for the newly elected Pope Pius V, which was destined for the pope’s burial chapel in the church of Santa Croce in his native town of Bosco Marengo in Piemonte. A preparatory drawing for it is in the Uffizi, Florence. Recent research has revealed that this small version was almost certainly painted for Vasari’s close friend Vincenzo Borghini, prior of the Spedale degli Innocenti (Foundling Hospital) in Florence.