Historians obsessively interpret Jacopo Pontormo’s altarpiece as a declaration of Florentine political liberty with Saint Anne its standard bearer. However, a divergent political reality – the autocratic rule in Florence of Leo X and Clement VII – transpires from an examination of the procession in the medallion below the Holy Family, and the painting’s paramount ingredient is pious devotion. After all, the recipients of the altarpiece were the Benedictine nuns of Saint Anne in Verzaia.