Mass of Saint Gregory

The story was hardly seen in art until the Jubilee Year of 1350,[2] when pilgrims to Rome saw a Byzantine icon, the Imago Pietatis, in the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, which was claimed to have been made at the time of the vision as a true representation.

[3] In this the figure of Christ was typical of the Byzantine forerunners of the Man of Sorrows, at half-length, with crossed hands and a head slumped sideways to the viewer's left.

According to Gertrud Schiller and the German scholars she cites, this has now been lost, but is known from many copies, including the small Byzantine micromosaic icon of about 1300 now in Santa Croce.

[7] The iconography is one of a number of examples where detached andachtsbilder images such as the Man of Sorrows intended for intense personal meditation, are worked back into monumental compositions for prominent display.

[12] With the Protestant Reformation, an image that asserted both divine approval of the Papacy and the doctrine of the Real Presence was attractive to Catholics, and the iconography continued to be used.