Saint Laurent trônant entouré de saints et de donateurs

Fra Filippo Lippi painted this altarpiece around 1453 for a Florentine merchant, Alessandro Alessandri, who kneels at the lower left with his two young sons. Saint Lawrence sits enthroned in the centre, his feet resting on the iron grill on which the Romans are said to have burned him alive. The two saints flanking him, Cosmas and Damian, were the special protectors of the Medici family, and placing them here quietly announced whose side Alessandri was on in Florentine politics. Look closely at the saints' robes and the borders carry a flowing pseudo-Arabic script, letters that spell nothing yet lend an air of the exotic East. The panel may have been made to mark an Alessandri daughter's marriage into the Medici household itself.