Soon after he returned from his pilgrimage to Rome in the jubilee year 1450, Rogier van der Weyden, the official painter of the city of Brussels, was commissioned to paint a devotional image for the Florentine banking family, the Medici. This is evidenced by the subject of the “Sacra Conversazione”, unusual for Northern Europe, and the coat of arms of Florence with its lilies, but above all by the choice of saints accompanying the Madonna: Cosmas and Damian, the doctor-saints, were the patron saints of the Medici, while Peter and John the Baptist were the patron saints of two of the family’s leading members, Piero and Giovanni de’ Medici.