This is one of a set of panels (P00611, P00612, P00614 y P00617) from Santo Tomás in Avila, where they were very likely part of an altarpiece dedicated to Saint Peter, the Martyr of Verona. It originally stood beside the transept but was later in the upper cloister of the convent. Saint Peter, the Martyr of Verona (thirteenth century) knew Saint Dominic and became a member of his new order, the Preachers or Dominicans, thanks to which he combated Manichean heresy and was appointed General Inquisitor. He was stabbed to death.

For the creation of the cycles of images in the altarpieces for the monastery of Santo Tomás in Ávila, Tomás de Torquemada probably gave Pedro de Berruguete access to an illuminated manuscript of legends of the Dominican saints of the type owned by many of the Order’s communities. It would have provided the starting point for altarpieces in which the painter, following the authoritarian monk’s instructions, introduced various iconographic modifications intended to give these hagiographic cycles an inquisitorial significance.