 The painting is part of a cycle on the life of Saint Peter , and describes a scene from the Gospel of Matthew , in which Jesus directs Peter to find a coin in the mouth of a fish in order to pay the temple tax . It owes its importance in particular to its revolutionary use of perspective and chiaroscuro . The Tribute Money suffered great damage in the centuries after its creation , until the chapel went through a thorough restoration in the 1980s . 
