The presbytery area of the church is indicated by a triumphal arch decorated in connected marbles and in the arch there are two niches that welcome, two sculptures in the round, two seventeenth-century reliquary busts that are dedicated and depict St. Peter and St. Paul, are decorated with pure gold leaf. The presbytery area no longer reflects the original image because the works carried out in the mid-1900s have distorted its original appearance; here stands the oil painting on canvas depicting the Madonna Assunta. The painting is certainly one of the valuable works of the church picture gallery, it is inserted in a marble frame framed by a coeval wooden frame and depicts the Madonna Assunta rising from what should be her sepulcher to rise to celestial glory. The lower part of the painting symbolizes the detachment from the earthly condition, leaving the sepulcher with a small portion of the landscape next to both the right and left of the composition which has the Madonna as its center at the apical point and occupies three quarters of the surrounded by an angelic host intent on playing various instruments and crowned by a clear aura with lighter tones than the background of the painting, an expert technician precisely to make the light emanating from the Madonna reflect a more intense light next to her head. The Madonna is depicted with her hands joined and with a very light veil given in transparency by the painter and framed by a group of cherubs that frame her head like a crown. The work dates back to the early decades of the seventeenth century and could be attributed to the work of Giovan Vincenzo Forli or to the hand of the so-called pseudo Forli painter.The most concrete definition of the historical personality of Giovan Vincenzo Forli is that provided by De Lellis who says he was a Neapolitan among the first-class painters of his time. The work of the painter, who received his first documented commission in 1592, is certainly influenced by counter-reformed works present in Naples itself, from that of Vassari to Marco Pino Da Siena, but these are ideas that do not do without of the Caravagesque experience and which constitute only the starting point because a whole world of artistic choices and personal experiences is manifested that lead him even in a growing advanced phase of naturalism to re-propose in his first work in Christ the typology of the Samaritan who does not renounce to the vaporous beauty of his little cherubs and to still express the personal maturity of surrounding shapes with light and translating the anatomical definition into chromatic depth. These are all elements that we also find in the framework of the assumption in which the chromatism of the aura described above highlights the anatomical definition of the Madonna. The painting was not originally from the church of Saints Peter and Paul The painting was moved to the church of Saints Peter and Paul in the 1940s, it was placed on the high altar of the brotherhood dedicated to the Assumption, whose headquarters is located next to the Church of the Most Holy Savior of Mercogliano. The church of the Assunta today is no longer accessible, so the priest decided to bring the painting to the mother church.
This painting is also part of the work started by the parish priest Don Vitaliano Della Sala for the restoration of the church picture gallery and was restored in 2014-2015 by Martino Del Mastro and Antonietta Petruzziello. The restoration made it possible to bring to light previously not visible details and to restore the original chromatic appearance to the painting In 1700 silver decorations had been added to the painting: a crown and a collar of the Bianco family, with earrings and a necklace probably earlier in low gold. These additions had weakened the cellulose support of the painting which had been thickened for this reason. In addition, stuccos had been added that had also altered the original color scheme, in fact the aura of light that surrounded the figure of the Madonna was no longer visible as well as the angelic host of Cherubini are distributed like a crown around the Madonna. The original color was considerably altered by opaque and yellowed paints, by coherent deposits that no longer allowed to glimpse the vibrant chromatic play desired by the artist and the restoration made it possible to consolidate the cellulose support, to eliminate irrelevant layers and the metallic additions they had followed one another over the centuries.
