This is a modello for the picture commissioned by Paolo Ghiselli, steward to Pope Gregory XIII, for the altar of his family chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Baraccano, Bologna. The altarpiece, lost since 1776, is known by an engraving by Aliprando Caprioli done in the same direction, which, according to Gere, would have been engraved under the supervision of the artist. The altarpiece was completed by 1580, and sent to Bologna, but was so severely criticized by local artists that Ghiselli refused to accept it, and rejected Federico's offer to paint another, J.A. Gere, op. cit., p. 130. Federico later presented the picture to the Collegio del Gesù, in Rome, which ironically later sent it back to Bologna to the church of Santa Lucia. Gere points out that a drawing in Munich (P. Halm, B. Degenhart, W. Wegner, Hundert Meisterzeichnungen aus der Staatlichen Graphischen Sammlung, Munich, 1958, pl. 49) corresponds with the main details of the present drawing. This and the Munich drawing, both showing a blank space in the lower margin, were probably used by Caprioli for is engraving. Another anonymous engraving of the same composition (D. Heikamp, Revista d'arte, XXXII, 1957, p. 186) shows some variants to Aliprando's print which Heikamp suggested were due to Federico's alterations upon the unfavourable reception of the picture. Gere disagreed with this view, pointing out that it was the picture that was sent to Bologna and not the modello, and that Federico could hardly have corrected the altarpiece as it was already sent. A further drawing in the Albertina relates to the altarpiece (inv. 2258, V. Birke and J. Kertész, op. cit, p. 1183) and shows the composition not arched at the top. The present drawing post dates the Albertina one and shows an attempt to do an unarched composition, though Federico changed his mind and eventually arched it. That the final picture is also arched is confirmed by the shape of Cesare Aretusi's altarpiece that replaced Federico's.
Federico was very sensitive to criticism: his response to the rejection of the altarpiece was a series of drawings called Porta Virtutis. These served as a basis for a large picture painted by Domenico Passignano that was exhibited against the façade of the church of Saint Luke, on 18 October 1581, the feast day of the patron saint of artists. Pope Gregory XIII, of Bolognese origin, interpreted this act as libellous behaviour, and banned Zuccaro from Rome and imprisoned Passignano. The present composition appears in a drawing of the Porta Virtutis at Christ Church, Oxford (E.J. Mundy, op. cit, fig. 41) sketched in the background on the other side of the arch, above Minerva's head (fig. 1). As Mundy pointed out this detail seems to have been surpressed in later versions of the drawing, such as the one in The Pierpont Morgan Library, E.J. Mundy op. cit., no. 85, illustrated. The watermark of the sheet is Veronese and datable 1582, when the artist was in exile in Venice and working on the pictures for the Sala del Gran Consiglio, Palazzo Ducale.
In the present drawing Federico Zuccaro illustrated the moment when Pope Gregory I (circa 540-606), according to the Golden Legend, stopped an outbreak of the plague by calling for a procession bearing a portrait of the Virgin painted by Saint Luke. The end of the plague was marked by the appearance of Saint Michael sheathing his sword above the Mausoleum of Hadrian, renamed afterwards the Castel Sant'Angelo.