Giuseppe Cesari
Cointerel's executor, Virglio Cresenzi, commissioned a Flemish sculptor, Jacques Cobaert, to make a marble statue of Matthew and an angel for the altar. Giuseppe Cesari, then one of the foremost artists in Rome, was contracted to fresco the two side walls and the vault. The details were clearly set out in the contract—Cobaert's altarpiece would show Matthew sitting in a chair, about to write the Gospel, with an angel standing and "appearing to reason or in other suitable pose." Cesari's side walls would show, on the right, Saint Matthew in his counting house (Matthew was a tax collector before becoming an apostle of Christ), suitably dressed, rising "to go to Our Lord, who, passing by with his disciples in the street, calls him...". And on the left, Matthew at the moment of his martyrdom, celebrating Mass at the altar, with "a crowd of men and women, young and old and children...some appalled and others pitying...".