Giuseppe Cesari
The first version revealed by the x-rays is in the Mannerist style of the most admired artist in Rome at the time, Giuseppe Cesari, with a crowd of small figures amidst massive architecture. It must have seemed static and distanced. The second version turned to Raphael for a model, adding a crowd of onlookers displaying fear and pity, including a woman who presumably represented the nun. This was in line with the crowded scene requested by Cardinal Contarelli and with the tenets of Mannerism, which demanded bodies and buildings defined by perspective and drawing, but Caravaggio had already developed a personal style in which bodies were defined by light and darkness and in which backgrounds were eliminated.