[5] Finally, in 1508, three people were appointed by the council to preside over the expansion of the chapel of Sant'Apollonio so that it could encompass the marble reliquary ark (archa marmorea et miro artificio fabricata de pecuniis collegii notariorum Brixie).

[9] The transfer of the relics, officiated by Bishop Mattia Ugoni and attended by notable city authorities as well as papal representatives, took place in July 1510,[10] by which time the ark would have been completed.

The sculptural complex is topped by the cymatium, consisting of a pedestal bearing a dedicatory inscription, on which is inset a statue of Sant'Apollonio with a crosier in gilded bronze.

The canopy is crowned with a lunette bearing a Madonna with Child and angels, in turn completed by a torch from which emanate false gold bronze flames.

From the seventeenth century onwards, the ark was considered a fine objet d'art in Brescia, especially in catalogues of Brescian saints, that is to say, from the time of its emplacement in the Old Cathedral.

Bernardino Faino, for instance, praised the beautiful depiction of the saint (istorie picole del istesso Santo, bellissime), adding that its author is unknown, being from antiquity.

[18] (This was the Caprioli Adoration, and marks the first time that an artistic connection was made with the ark, not based on literary or archival evidence, but purely on stylistic considerations.

Zani was able to locate identical characteristics between the summit statue of the ark of Sant'Apollonio and the keystone of the portico of the Palazzo della Loggia in Brescia, the latter documented with payments to Cairano in 1497.

[24] The ark's two statues of Saints Faustino and Giovita, on the contrary, represent an extreme tribute to the Angels of Tamagnino for the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, against which Cairano, almost twenty years earlier, had opposed his qualitatively inferior Apostles.

The face of San Faustino has unfinished parts left close to smoothing, worked directly with a flat chisel, proving the virtuosity of the master in sculpting heads.