Adoration of the Magi (Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi) interest in both the subject and the form. The Magi had been the key Medici devotion for decades, apparently beginning with the papacy of Antipope John XXIII (1410–1415) when they had become the main bankers of the Papacy, or at least those parts John controlled. The Medici belonged to the "Compagnia de' Magi", a Florentine confraternity based at the San Marco complex just by the Medici Palace, both of which Cosimo de' Medici rebuilt a few years before the tondo was painted. An annual procession on the feast of the Epiphany on January 6 was organized by the confraternity, and
Biblical Magi is called Saint Sophia. The visit of the Magi is commemorated in most Western Christian churches by the observance of Epiphany, 6 January, which also serves as the feast of the three as saints. The Eastern Orthodox celebrate the visit of the Magi on 25 December. Qur'an omits Matthew's episode of the Magi. However, the Persian Muslim encyclopaedist al-Tabari, writing in the 9th century, gives the familiar symbolism of the gifts of the Magi. Al-Tabari gave his source for the information to be the later 7th century Perso-Yemenite writer Wahb ibn Munabbih. Holidays celebrating the arrival of the Magi traditionally