The Healing of Palladia by Saints Cosmas and Damian

Fra Angelico's Healing of Palladia by Saints Cosmas and Damian, painted around 1438, forms part of the predella of the San Marco altarpiece commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici. The Medici family had a special devotion to Saints Cosmas and Damian, their patron saints, making this cycle a key expression of Medici piety and patronage. Fra Angelico — born Guido di Pietro, known in religion as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole — was a Dominican friar whose painting practice was inseparable from his spiritual vocation. Working primarily for his own order and for Florentine civic and private patrons, he created some of the most luminous and spiritually powerful images in the history of European art.

The predella scene demonstrates Fra Angelico's gift for luminous color and spatial clarity, with the healing narrative rendered in a measured, serene composition that balances architectural precision with tender human interaction.