According to Italian late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari,[1] there Parmigianino painted two tempera panels: St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata (lost) and the Marriage of St. Catherine, which was placed in the church of San Pietro.

The work depicts the mystical marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, set a in a fake niche with a colonnade surmounting the background curved wall.

In the middle is the Virgin sitting on a tall throne, above a historiated section of column (decorated with a barely visible putto), giving the Child to St. Catherine, on the left, who receives the symbolic marriage ring.

At the sides are two saints, St. John the Evangelist (with a chalice full of snakes, a hint to his alleged miraculous discovery and healing of a poisoned drink) and St. John the Baptist, who holds his typical attribute, a tall and slim cross.

Catherine's attributes are shown in the low foreground, including a broken wheel and the martyrdom palm.