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
Adoration of the Magi (Rubens, Lyon) Adoration of the Magi (Rubens, Lyon) The Adoration of the Magi is a c.1617-18 painting by Peter Paul Rubens. It is now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon Since it is horizontal rather than vertical it was probably commissioned for a private collection rather than as an altarpiece. Peter C. Sutton suggested that, as Rubens' treatments of this subject in vertical formats were for known ecclesiastical commissions as altarpieces, the horizontal format, which is shared with Rubens' "Adoration" painted for the "Statenkamer" of Antwerp's town hall, c. 1608-09, might suggest that the Lyon painting was also a secular commission.