Judit with the Head of Holofernes

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, painted around 1505 and now at the National Gallery London, is among Cima's most harmoniously composed altarpieces. The risen Christ presents his wound to Thomas while the other apostles gather in attentive witness. Cima sets the scene before an elaborate architectural background — a triumphal arch of Roman design — that frames the theological assertion: the Resurrection is presented as historical fact, as monumental and durable as Roman stone. His figures, more idealized than his Venetian contemporaries, stand with a sculptural serenity that owes something to the influence of Antonello da Messina, whose fusion of Flemish precision with Italian clarity was the foundation of Venetian Renaissance painting in the 1470s and 1480s.

The late treatment of Judith shows Botticelli's more austere late style, the heroine's determined expression and the grim trophy rendered with angular drawing that prioritizes spiritual intensity over decorative beauty.