Sepulchring of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian

Around 1443 Cosimo de' Medici, the banker who effectively ran Florence, paid to rebuild the convent of San Marco and gave it a grand altarpiece. He had a personal stake in the saints on it. Cosmas and Damian were early doctors who healed for free, and the family name, Medici, means doctors. They were the Medici patron saints, and Cosimo was named for one of them. This little panel ran along the base of the altarpiece and shows the two brothers being laid in the ground after their execution. When the altarpiece was taken apart centuries later, its small scenes were scattered across Europe. This burial is one of the few that never left, still in the convent Cosimo paid for.