The Disputation of Saint Catherine of Alexandria

A triumphal arch fills the middle of this scene, copied from the Arch of Constantine in Rome. On top stands a golden bull, the heraldic animal of the Borgia family, and the inscription below praises the pope who commissioned the room, Alexander VI, as a cultivator of peace. An ancient monument to a victorious emperor has been turned into a compliment to the pope.

In front of it plays the legend of Catherine of Alexandria. A young Christian noblewoman refuses to sacrifice to the pagan gods, and the governor Maximinus Daia sets 50 scholars of his court against her. She out-argues them all and converts them, and in the end it costs her life. Pinturicchio stages the debate as a day at court, crowded with richly dressed onlookers, and people have long looked for real faces among them. By tradition Catherine is Lucrezia Borgia and the enthroned governor her brother Cesare. The man in the white turban is said to be the Ottoman prince Djem, the sultan's brother, then held in Rome as the pope's hostage, and behind the throne stand the painter himself and the architect Giuliano da Sangallo with a pair of compasses. The museum repeats these names and warns that they are not always well founded.