The contract for the work is dated 14 February 1496 and contains detailed instructions for its production and for its wooden frame by Mattia di Tommaso da Reggio, which imitated the architecture of the church's facade.

Predella of Pala di Santa Maria dei Fossi The central panel shows the Madonna and Child with the infant John the Baptist - the Virgin Mary was the church's patron saint.

The reliefs on the Madonna's throne are inspired by those on ancient Roman sarcophagi, then being rediscovered as part of the Italian Renaissance, whilst behind it is an Umbrian landscape.

The contract also stipulated figures of Ubald, Bernard of Clairvaux, Joseph, the local saint Dignamerita of Brescia (a martyr in the Hadrianic persecutions) and other popes, cardinals and devotees - it is unclear if those other panels were ever completed or if they were part of the original decoration of the pilasters, lost when the work was split up in the late 18th century.

Two smaller side panels above Augustine and Jerome form a two-part Annunciation, with Gabriel on the left and Mary on the right - her room shows an early use of grotesque decoration, whilst her books are painted in a style influenced by contemporary Flemish still lifes.

It was neglected by 20th century art criticism, though in 1960 Carli dated it to the peak of the painter's career and praised the "extraordinary lightness and freshness of its colours".