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The marble reliefs decorating the tombs in the Cappella Sistina of the Santa Maria Maggiore are typical of sixteenth-century papal tombs in containing both illustrations of important events in the individual papacies and personifications of virtues. They are therefore much like Roman imperial historical reliefs: conventional in their iconography and didactic in their intentions. In the case of Sixtus, the reliefs depict his attempts to make Rome a safe city. Thus, Sixtus freed the countryside from bandits and attempted - with only partial success - to make it secure.
The relief, which is a detail of Tomb of Sixtus V represents soldiers carrying the severed heads of bandits, against whom Sixtus was especially severe.
The Tomb of Sixtus V was commissioned by Sixtus V himself. The design is by Domenico Fontana. Sixtus employed an international group of artists for the sculpture of the Chapel. In addition to the Italian Paracca, both Egidio della Riviera (Gillis van den Vliete) and Niccolò Pippi (Nicolas Piper) came from northern Europe and brought with them traces of a Flemish style.
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