Sculptural group composed of original marbles and ancient plaster casts, depicting the so-called "Dormitio Virginis" i.e. the Death of the Virgin Mary, a work by Arnolfo di Cambio from 1300 and 1310 and intended for the right portal of the first facade, as part of the decorative cycle dedicated to the Madonna, titular of the new Cathedral. The sculptures, removed when the facade was demolished in 1587, suffered different fates. The Virgin and the two heads of the Apostles, replaced here by ancient casts, are today preserved in the Bode Museum in Berlin and appear damaged there by one of the fires that struck the Flakturm Friedrichshain in 1945. The fragments with the heads of Christ with the 'animula” (the soul in form of a child) of Mary and the beautiful sorrowful Saint Andrew, purchased in 2015 from a private Florentine collection. The group is conceived to be seen from below, and is characterized by a profound plastic sense rendered in simplified forms, combined with an extraordinary naturalism and a marked psychological expressionism of poses and expressions. In the central high relief Mary is represented, lying down, veiled, her face marked by a serene expression, of sleep rather than death, with which she contrasts the heartbroken pain of the young apostle with curly hair who throws himself to hold her feet crying . In front, a mature apostle, with beard and long hair, dressed in the old style, advances twisting forward, with his gaze lost in pain and turned outwards. Above, behind us, two apostles, one of which is bearded and elderly, despite the very incomplete state of the sculpture, express mournful pain. Next to the hieratic head, Christ welcomes a newborn baby: it is the soul of Mary who is welcomed into heaven. The iconography of the "Dormitio Virginis" originates in the legendary tradition and in the cycle of sculptures of the three portals it constitutes the final act of the stories of Mary. This belief in the death of the Madonna is an alternative to that of the Assumption with the body of Mary, which later became dogma in the 20th century and which is represented in the contemporary mosaic of the lunette on the counter-façade.