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The artist conceived this unusual painting as a false polyptych, with the canvas divided into compartments that are separated by illusionistically painted late gothic portal colonettes. This is one of the most significant of the ten or fifteen surviving examples of this technique, which spread through east central Italy and the Veneto during the second half of the fifteenth century. The work has been stylistically connected to Niccolò's sojourn in the Marche region, and shows his knowledge of the works of Vivarini. The dating is based on a stylistic comparison with the 1465 Cagli polyptych (now at Breda) and with the triptych of the Cathedral of Assisi, the latter of which dates to 1468, the same date that has been assigned to this painting.
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