In this simple and spare composition, the cross bearing Jesus stands to the left of centre, making room for the archangel Raphael and Tobias to the right, opposite St. Francis, who stands alone to the left, his stigmatized hands crossed at his chest and his unshod feet, likewise marked, emerging from beneath his austere friar’s robe. Raphael, by contrast, is swathed in a bright red drapery over a dark green shirt, and Tobias in a brown jacket over a yellow shirt, his golden locks topped with a yellow turban. An eerie pinkish glow of sunrise illuminates a horizon lined with bare mountains along the shore of a lake. In the foreground, below the foot of the cross, a skull reminds the viewer of the meaning of Golgotha as the “Place of a Skull” (Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22, John 19:17), and below the skull, Tobias’s small curly-haired dog lowers its pointed snout to sniff the ground. The scene echoes an early 15th-century Florentine fashion for depictions of Tobias accompanied by Raphael in his role as guardian angel, typically invoking his protection of the sons of merchants on their travels.