In the central mosaic in the apse of Santa Maria in Trastevere, the Virgin Mary appears as Christ's queen and bride, assumed into heaven and interceding for humanity. As part of an artistic program that proclaimed Pope Innocent II's restoration of the church after the end of the schism in 1138, the mosaic layers the liturgical language of the Assumption with bridal and regnal symbolism, conflating the bride of the Song of Songs, Mary, the Church, and the woman of the Apocalypse to create one of the earliest renditions of Christ and Mary enthroned together. The image is not symmetrical. Christ is centered in the apse, his weight shifted slightly as he embraces Mary with his right arm. Mary is smaller. She leans toward Christ, wearing an elaborately patterned robe, shoes, and a jeweled crown that contrasts with Christ's bare head, sandals, blue tunic, and shimmering mantle of gold. Her left hand gestures in supplication, and she holds a scroll that repeats the words of the bride from the Song of Songs, ‘His left arm is under my head and his right arm shall embrace me.’

Tempering the marital imagery in the apse is the maternal language in an inscription that runs beneath the feet of the celestial couple. The inscription associates Innocent's rebuilt basilica with his restoration of the Church, but it also asserts that ‘this palace of honor, shining with the glorious splendor of the divine’ was built in honor of Mary, ‘most bright mother, in whom/which, O Christ, your throne endures beyond the throne of the world’.