Christ in pity 

The painting depicts Christ in the sepulchre supported by an angel and portrays a theme particularly dear to popular devotion, which was reliably interpreted by Tommaso di Piero Trombetto in Prato in the first decades of the 16th century. A painter and candlemaker, but also a trumpeter for the Municipality, he was able to grasp the tendencies of Prato's middle class, aimed at calm, domestic narratives that were only superficially influenced by great contemporary Florentine painting. The echo of the great masters arrived late in the towns far from the capital, and local workshops replicated the more complex themes with particular slowness. 
The subject, which occupies almost the entirety of this centred panel, is taken from the central detail of the predella that Filippino Lippi painted with his workshop around 1495, completing the altarpiece for the Convent of Palco with Intercession of Christ and Virgin on behalf of mankind to God, now in Munich. After about twenty years, Trombetto reworked this composition, emphasising the signs of passion.
Christ, three-quarter length - with his legs still inside the tomb - is depicted with the signs of crucifixion: his hands are bloodied as is his forehead on which the crown of thorns rests. Behind, an angel gently supports him, in an atmosphere of heartfelt devotion.
Documented in the Audience Chamber in this same palace and paid to the painter in 1526, the panel was later placed in the Prison Chapel adjacent to Palazzo Pretorio, built in 1682. In addition to the works exhibited in this room, the same artist also painted the Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò da Prato in the hall of the Town Hall.