sentences:  They represent emotive mourners gathered around the dead Christ, in which each character is a portrait of either the donor or a relative of the donor; in the Modena "Lamentation", for instance, Ercole I d'Este represents Nicodemus and his wife Eleonor represents Mary of Cleophas.In the Neapolitan piece, Alfonso II is Joseph of Arimathea.It seems probable that Mazzoni's background in theatrical masks and props affected his work, because of the staged melodrama in their gestures and expressions.