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The plain marble sarcophagus is decorated with eight rectangular narrative reliefs which relate in a thoroughly classical narrative sequence the end of the career, the death, after-life and posthumous fame of a medical professor: a theme that could apply equally to either the older (Girolamo, d. 1506) or the younger (Marcantonio, d. 1511) Della Torre.
The picture shows The Triumph of Humanist Virtue. The panel depicts a gorgeous winged figure of Fame balancing on a globe, trumpeting in triumph over Death, shown as a skeleton, with Pegasus striking the ground with his hoof and creating the spring Hippocrene, fount of the Muses.
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