[1] Leon Battista Alberti had praised it and recommended it as a subject for artists to recreate in his highly influential De pictura of 1435, and there were four translations of Lucian's Greek into Latin or Italian during the 15th century.

From left to right, they represent (with alternative names): Truth, nude and pointing upwards to Heaven; Repentance in black; Perfidy (Conspiracy) in red and yellow, over the innocent half-naked victim on the floor, who is being pulled forward by the hair by Calumny (Slander), in white and blue and holding a flaming torch.

Though Apelles' works have not survived, Lucian recorded details of one in his On Calumny: On the right of it sits Midas with very large ears, extending his hand to Slander while she is still at some distance from him.

At all events, she is turning back with tears in her eyes and casting a stealthy glance, full of shame, at Truth, who is slowly approaching.

[11] A difficulty with Lucian's story is that, although Apelles' dates are far from certain, he is usually regarded as a contemporary of Alexander the Great, active about a century before the conspiracy.

Without any description of the setting in Lucian or Alberti, Botticelli has imagined a throne room very elaborately decorated with sculptures and reliefs of classical heroes, creatures from ancient myth, and battle scenes.

[15] Other scenes probably derive from ancient engraved gems, and one recreates another of Lucian's descriptions, of a family of centaurs by Zeuxis (below the throne).

[20] Most of the architecture has a more or less consistent vanishing point, around the head of Fraud, but the central cornice and vaults use one a good deal lower.

[21] Some decades later Giorgio Vasari saw the painting in the collection of the son of Antonio Segna Guidi (c. 1460–1512), a Florentine banker whose period from 1497 overseeing the Papal Mint ended unhappily, on the rack.

[22] Frederick Hartt notes the temptation to see the painting as a defence of Savonarola against his enemies, especially as the black robe with white underneath of Penitence can be seen as that of the friar's Dominican order.