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
Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion (MS 17.190.475) is a small south Netherlandish prayer nut, carved in fine-grained boxwood, and dated to c 1500–10. It is now in the collection of The Cloisters, New York. Originally the bead would have been part of a complete rosary set, and its size suggests its use as an "Ave bead", where the supplicant would recite the "Hail Mary". Objects of this type were in great demand in the early sixteenth century. Apart from use in private veneration,