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During the reign of Sixtus IV the grandly-scaled classicising funerary monument became a common designation of status for the church hierarchy, one increasingly codified in its formal elements. Papal tombs had previously been large and made of costly materials, now cardinals, too, and other important clerics emulated the popes with elaborate wall tombs in their titular churches. The leading workshop in developing this type of monument was that of Andrea Bregno. The tomb of Cardinal Pietro Riario, the favorite nephew of Sixtus IV, is a fully developed example of this type of tomb.
The effigy of the dead cardinal lies on a bier above a sarcophagus decorated with festoons, putti, and other motifs. Riario appears a second time in the relief above his effigy, being presented by his name saint, Peter, to the Virgin and Child. His brother Girolamo kneels at the right with St Paul.
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