In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, these paintings would have been viewed in flickering candlelight, their gold details catching the light. Yet these were not just beautiful works of art. They served a functional purpose, as a focus for religious devotion and storytelling.

Bernardo Daddi's panel, The Marriage of the Virgin, was part of an altarpiece which originally adorned the high altar of Florence Cathedral. By 1375, the old Florentine Cathedral was demolished and Daddi's altarpiece transferred to the Florentine church of San Pancrazio, where in the mid-eighteenth century it was dismantled.

While Daddi's predella panel was to be found at the base of an altarpiece, the shape of Christ Blessing from Fra Angelico's workshop suggests that it formed part of an altarpiece pinnacle. It would have been placed high above the central section of a large altarpiece.

In contrast to these large altarpiece structures, Duccio's intimate triptych would have been used as a personal, and possibly portable, devotional object. Its narrative scenes were intended to be precisely read from the left wing to the right wing by the viewer.