Medici Madonna

This is a Flemish painting made for Florence. Around 1460 the Medici, the banking family who effectively ran the city, wanted a picture from Rogier van der Weyden, the leading painter in the Netherlands, and his northern precision came south. The clue is at the Virgin's feet: on the lower step sits the Florentine coat of arms, the red lily. The saints are chosen for the family too. The two doctors in red, Cosmas and Damian, were the Medici's own patron saints, a play on their name, which means the doctors. Beside them stand Peter and John the Baptist, John being the patron of Florence and the name-saints of two leading Medici men. Notice Cosmas slipping a coin into the purse at his belt, a reminder that this was, after all, a family of bankers.