The copper disc with the profile portrait of Pope Urban VIII, based on a medal by Gaspare Mola suggests that this mortar belonged to a papal pharmacy. Lucenti's name is stamped into the side, and that of the owner Simandius de Toti (or Tozzi of Orvieto, appears in relief around the rim; the coat of arms are probably his. The lizard and leaves were probably cast from nature, a technique also used on Bernini's Baldacchino in St Peter's in Rome, which was cast by Lucenti in collaboration with Gregorio de Rossi. The technique involving the use of real plants and animals rather than models, became popular in the mid-sixteenth century and was practised for example by the French Ceramicist Bernard Palissy and the South German goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer.