Around 1475, Italian Renaissance artist Francesco Botticini created a large painting titled “The Assumption of the Virgin.” The theme of the Virgin Mary ascending to heaven was common in Renaissance art.  In the lower third of the painting, we see the 12 apostles of Jesus. They stand next to an open casket on a hill that overlooks Florence, Italy. The casket contains not a body, but instead lilies—the flowers often associated with Mary’s purity.   Dressed in red and kneeling in devotion to the left of the apostles is the poet and apothecary Matteo Palmieri. He is the patron who commissioned the painting for his funerary chapel. Kneeling to the right of the apostles is his wife, Niccolosa. During the Renaissance, patrons often had their likenesses depicted in divine scenes to show their own devotion and piety.  Above the earthly scene, Botticini has depicted the heavens opening up, where, at the …