A Cura de Palladia pelos santos Cosme e Damião

This little panel was once part of something much larger. Around 1440 Fra Angelico painted the high altarpiece for the church of San Marco in Florence, a commission the Medici family paid for, and along its base ran a row of small scenes from the lives of Saints Cosmas and Damian, two early doctors said to have healed the sick without charging. The Medici had taken the pair as their patron saints. On the left the two tend a sick woman, Palladia, in a darkened room, and on the right she stands healed, holding out a gift in thanks. Fra Angelico puts the two moments in separate parts of one building so the eye reads them in order. The predella was later broken up and its panels sold off from the friary's pharmacy, and this scene is now in Washington.