The Saints Cosmas and Damian with their Brothers before the Proconsul Lysias

Fra Angelico's depiction of Saints Cosmas and Damian before the Proconsul Lysias, painted around 1438 for the San Marco altarpiece predella, shows the physician-saints confronting Roman authority. The scene parallels early Christian martyrdom narratives with the contemporary experience of the Medici, who identified with these healing saints. Fra Angelico — born Guido di Pietro, known in religion as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole — was a Dominican friar whose painting practice was inseparable from his spiritual vocation. Working primarily for his own order and for Florentine civic and private patrons, he created some of the most luminous and spiritually powerful images in the history of European art.

The judicial scene is set within a convincing architectural space rendered in one-point perspective, with the proconsul enthroned at center and the saints flanked by soldiers, all painted in Fra Angelico's clear, luminous tempera.