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In the Benedictine convent church of San Maurizio in Milan the nuns' enclosure was separated from the section of the church for the laity by a partition (tramezzo in Italian). The partition was integrated into the rhythm and articulation of the nave with the series of pilasters arches continuing across the partition. Hence the painting had to subordinate itself to the architecture, which assigned it its field.
Bernardino Luini frescoed the walls in the 1520s. The decoration was donated by Alessandro Bentivoglio, son of the former ruler of Bologna, and his Milanese wife, Ippolita Sforza Bentivoglio. Both the donors are depicted together with female saints in the side arch bays. The portraits face the altar, above which, in the middle, where the altarpiece would later be located, there was originally a tall grill, behind which stood the nuns' chancel. In the upper register of the painted wall, on either side of the Assumption of the Virgin, are two scenes from the legend of St Maurice, the patron saint of the church. Such architectonically articulated barriers were frequently repeated in later churches in Milan.
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