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The Brera has several detached frescoes from the chapel of the Natività della Vergine in the Franciscan church of Santa Maria della Pace in Milan. The frescoes depict scenes related to the birth and juvenile years of the Virgin, a subject on which the interest of the Franciscan Order, who played an important role in Lombardy, was focused.
In his late frescoes, such as this one, Ferrari appears to have recovered the more spontaneous manner of his early work. The tormented muscular contortions and the forced gestures are simpler here, and the figures appear engaged in quiet, intense conversation. The elements of the composition are densely interwoven, yet there remains a touch of the artist's previous "stage-set" painting in the daring oblique perspective and the looming city, with its architectonic definition. It is as if Ferrari were painting an enormous predella in pure, decided colours that create rousing harmonies of pictorial splendour.
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