Anhörung der hll. Cosmas und Damian und ihrer Brüder vor Prokonsul Lysias

These panels (see inv. no. WAF 37, WAF 38 and WAF 38) belong to a total of nine pictures that make up the predella of the high altar in San Marco, the first major altar commissioned by the Medici in Florence. While the principal panel shows the Madonna surrounded by saints (Florence, Museo di San Marco), the scenes on the predella relate the rarely depicted legend of the saints Cosmas and Damian—divided by the Entombment of Christ in the middle. Fra Angelico, who rose to become the leading Early Renaissance painter in Florence, captures these episodes in an elaborateness previously unknown. Saints Cosmas and Damian were the namesakes of the benefactor, Cosimo de’ Medici, and his twin brother, Damiano, who died young.