The elevatio animae group of Margaret of Brabant is one of the most famous medieval sculptures. It was commissioned from Giovanni Pisano, the most important sculptor of the time, by Emperor Henry VII as a tribute to his beloved wife Margaret of Brabant who died in Genoa at the age of 36 on the night of 13 December 1311. The funeral monument was erected in the church of San Francesco di Castelletto and placed in the apsis. Later, at the end of the 16th century (before 1602), it was dismembered and reused in the chapel of San Francesco in the same church. With the demolition of the sacred building in the early 19th century, the group was transferred by the Brignole Sale family to Villa Duchessa di Galliera in Voltri, where it remained until the 1870s, when it was rediscovered by Santo Varni. Fragment of the funerary monument of Margaret of Brabant, depicting the elevatio animae. The glorious body of the queen, gazing upwards towards heaven, is lifted by two headless angels.