It had already been used in the Low Countries in Bouts' 1455 The Entombment, but this marked smalt's first use in Italian art, twenty years before Leonardo da Vinci used it in Ludovico il Moro's apartments in Milan in 1492.

In his will in 1476 the painter Giovanni Pizzimegli offered to make a payment to help meet the cost of a high altarpiece for the church of San Francesco, but does not specify if the work was planned, in progress or complete, meaning it cannot definitely be identified with the Pala of Pesaro.

Most critics agreed with Longhi until Pallucchini (1959) and Meiss (1963) proposed 1470–1471, based on comparisons with the altarpiece's central scene of the Coronation of the Virgin with the Enthroned Madonna with Saints by Marco Zoppo (now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin).

More recent studies by Battisti and Castelli have suggested the 1480s, linking the work's iconology to political events such as Camilla d'Aragona's regency from 1483 onwards or religious disputes of the period, such as those between the Franciscans and Dominicans.

Mary and Christ sit on a marble throne whose open back reveals a realistic rocky landscape, surrounded by a border that is identical to the original gilded intaglio frame for the work.

Behind St Terence is an ancient Roman bust above an inscription praising Augustus and comparing him favourably with the Duke.

This is now the consensus view, though Ileana Chiappini argues the two works have different focal points and so were created separately and only joined later.

Bellini further developed his use of the frame as an integral part of the painting in later works such as the San Giobbe Altarpiece and the Frari Triptych.