For a long time, Diana’s memory was shaped by a proto-Romantic legend of a jealous uxoricidal murder, also spread by De Dominici. According to this narrative, Beltrano, suspecting an affair between Diana and Stanzione—actually a professional preference motivated by her talent—would have stabbed her to death. This dark fable obscured her historical identity and inspired theatrical, literary, and pictorial interpretations until the twentieth century.

Archival research begun in the late nineteenth century has instead revealed a very different story. Diana, daughter of the painter Tommaso Di Rosa and Caterina De Mauro, was baptized on 20 May 1602. After Tommaso’s death in 1610, her mother remarried Filippo Vitale, a leading exponent of southern Italian naturalism. Within this complex artistic household—which later included Aniello Falcone and Giovanni Do—lie the most immediate references for Diana’s stylistic formation, even before Stanzione’s influence.

As Thomas Willette observed, the nickname “Annella di Massimo” is documented in early inventories, notably the 1648 collection of Giuseppe Carafa, Duke of Maddaloni, which lists a Saint Agatha by Diana “retouched by the hand of Massimo,” confirming a real professional relationship. The diminutive “Annella” also appears in a 1644 notarial document in which the recently widowed Agostino donated 700 ducats to his children.

Diana’s apprenticeship took place not in Stanzione’s workshop but in that of Gaspare Del Popolo. In 1621 Del Popolo took into service both Agostino and Diana; the relationship proved long and close, culminating in his contribution to their marriage dowry and the assignment of a pension to Diana. The couple renewed their service in 1627, and between 1629 and 1640 Diana bore at least six children. She died in December 1643 and was buried in the Gesù Nuovo, with no trace of the violent death described by De Dominici.

The Sacrifice of Noah depicts the post-Flood offering as a moment of reconciliation and covenant. This Old Testament theme recurs frequently in seventeenth-century Neapolitan painting, particularly in Stanzione’s circle. Beltrano’s Sacrifice of Noah, now in Budapest, shows close iconographic ties to the Limentani canvas.

The painting discussed here represents a high point of Diana’s production and belongs to an early phase strongly influenced by Stanzione. Comparison with the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew in Reggio Calabria reveals shared models, while secondary figures suggest Beltrano’s collaboration. The physiognomies, especially of Noah’s sons, display Diana’s distinctive naturalism, also evident in the Marriage of the Virgin in Naples.