Today is the feast of SS Cosmas and Damian and John Dillon has once again posted a splendid selection of images together with an account of the origins of devotion to them on the Medieval Religion discussion group as follows:
The at least largely legendary Cosmas and Damian (d. early 4th cent., supposedly) are said to have been brothers from somewhere in the East (their region of origin is variously reported) who operated marvelous cures and who refused to accept compensation for their services. In Byzantine-rite churches they and St. Panteleimon constitute an informal upper tier within the category of physician-saints known as the Holy Unmercenaries (in Greek: Hagioi Anargyroi). In Italy they are often referred to simply as the Holy Doctors ("i Santi Medici"). That they perished in the Great Persecution seems, like most details of the the medieval accounts of their activities, to be either invention or conjecture. Cosmas and Damian are named in the Roman and Ambrosian canons of the Mass. In the revisions to the Roman Calendar promulgated in 1969 their feast was moved to September 26th. Byzantine-rite churches celebrate them on different days under three separate identities: Cosmas and Damian of Rome ( July 1st), Cosmas and Damian of Arabia ( October 17th), and Cosmas and Damian of Cilicia (November 1st).
Some period-pertinent images of Cosmas and Damian:
a) Cosmas and Damian (second from left and second from right; one introduced by St. Peter and the other by St. Paul) as depicted in the originally earlier sixth-century apse mosaic (c. 527-530) of Rome's basilica dei Santi Cosma e Damiano:
b) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (being crowned by Christ) in the earlier to mid-sixth-century mosaics of the north apse (carefully restored, 1890-1900) in the Basilica Eufrasiana in Poreč (the detail images are larger than is the overall view):
Detail view (Cosmas):
Detail view (Damian):
Detail view (Jesus):
c) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (flanking, in the upper register, the three boys in the fiery furnace and, in the lower register, their own three martyred brothers Sts. Leontius, Euprepius, and Anthimus) in a sixth- or seventh-century wall painting from a house in Wadi Sarga in Egypt, now in the British Museum in London:
http://tinyurl.com/34c2joy
d) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in an eighth- or perhaps earlier ninth-century fresco in the oratorio dei Quaranta Martiri in the Catacombe di Santa Lucia in Siracusa (Syracuse):
e) Cosmas as depicted in a deteriorated tenth- or eleventh-century fresco in the Grotta dei Santi in Pignataro Maggiore (CE; near Calvi Risorta) in northern Campania:
f) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 152):
http://www.br-faksimile.de/Menologion2.jpg
g) Cosmas as depicted in an earlier eleventh-century mosaic (restored between 1953 and 1962) in the narthex of church of the Theotokos in the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/qcbarwj
h) Cosmas and Damian as portrayed (at left and right in the lower register of saints flanking the ivory central panel) in the mid-eleventh-century book cover of the Gospels of Theophanu of Essen (between 1039 and c. 1058; Essen, Domschatzkammer, Hs. 3):
Cosmas and Damian were the patron saints of the monastery at Essen of which this Theophanu was abbess.
i) Cosmas and Damian and their three martyred brothers Sts. Leontius, Euprepius, and Anthimus as depicted in a coloured pen-and-ink initial in the mid-twelfth-century martyrology and necrology of the abbey of Pontlevoy (ca. 1141-1142; Blois, Bibliothèque Abbé-Grégoire, ms. 44, fols. 8-79v, at fol. 62v):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_053638-p.jpg
j) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in the mid- to slightly later twelfth-century mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo:
Cosmas:
Damian:
k) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in the twelfth- or thirteenth-century frescoes (restored betw. 1992 and 1997) of the rupestrian chiesa / cripta San Leonardo at Massafra (TA) in southern Apulia:
1) Cosmas:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24271543@N03/5732304075/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/77379511@N06/14424923361/
2) Damian:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24271543@N03/5732295853/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rita-restifo/14241667378/
3) in situ in the church:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/77379511@N06/14241696790
l) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (detail view) in a later twelfth- or very early thirteenth-century fresco in the narthex of the originally early twelfth-century church of the Panagia Phorbiotissa at Asinou near Nikitari in the Republic of Cyprus:
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/89173218/De-Agostini
A full-length but distance view will be found in the panorama of the frescoes in the narthex accessible from this page:
http://cyprus.arounder.com/en/churches/asinou-church
m) Cosmas and Damian (martyrdom) as depicted by Villard de Honnecourt in an earlier thirteenth-century drawing (c. 1230; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 19093, fol. 27r):
n) Damian as depicted in the mid-thirteenth-century frescoes (1259) in the church of Sts. Nicholas and Panteleimon at Boyana near the Bulgarian capital of Sofia:
http://galenf.com/Bulgaria/36/bu_0017a.jpg
o) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (flanking St. Panteleimon) in a later thirteenth-century fresco (either 1263-1270 or slightly later) in the nave of the church of the Holy Trinity in the Sopoćani monastery at Sopoćani (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/2cmfglq
Detail view of the saint at right (Damian?):
http://tinyurl.com/9f3md34
p) Cosmas and Damian (at left) as depicted in one of the later thirteenth-century frescoes (between 1270 and 1285) devoted to them in the diakonikon of the St. Demetrius cathedral at Mistra:
http://tinyurl.com/2fqagcg
q) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (attaching the black leg of an Ethiopian to a white man whose diseased leg they had removed) in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the Legenda aurea (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 132r; image greatly expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/3cjxvl5
r) Cosmas (at left) and Damian as depicted by Eutychios and Michael Astrapas in the late thirteenth-century frescoes (c. 1295) in the church of the Peribleptos (now Sv. Kliment Ohridski) in Ohrid:
http://tinyurl.com/6eshpzr
s) Cosmas (at left) and Damian as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (between c. 1312 and 1321/1322) of one of the domes of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/2wsvm8t
t) Cosmas as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (between c. 1313 and c. 1320) of the nave of the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/yc5stwe
u) Cosmas (at left) and Damian Cosmas as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (between 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the church of St. George at Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/7gebhof
Cosmas and Damian are also depicted at full length elsewhere in these frescoes.
v) Cosmas and Damian (at left) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (between c. 1317 and 1324) in the church of St. Demetrius in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/3akweqn
Detail view (Cosmas):
http://tinyurl.com/26gkcn5
Detail view (Damian):
http://tinyurl.com/2a5a6pq
w) as depicted (upper register in panel at upper left; raising their hands) in an earlier fourteenth-century pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki (between 1322 and 1340; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol. 15v):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/15v.jpg
x) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century French-language legendary of Parisian origin with illuminations attributed to the Fauvel Master (c. 1327; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 227v):
http://tinyurl.com/2ckxm63
y) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) in the church of the Holy Savior (Sv. Spas; a.k.a. church of the Presentation of the Theotokos) at Kučevište in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
Cosmas (detail of a full-length image):
http://tinyurl.com/np5pkat
Damian:
http://tinyurl.com/o672w9p
z) Cosmas and Damian (at left and centre; at right, St. Panteleimon) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (1330s) in the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/3jgsftt
Detail view (Cosmas):
http://tinyurl.com/3mvhn47
Detail view (Damian):
http://tinyurl.com/3ud7jap
aa) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (healing; martyrdom: stoning, crucifixion) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (ca. 1335) of books 9-16 of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Arsenal 5080, fol. 229v):
http://tinyurl.com/qy9r2x8
bb) Cosmas (at left) and Damian as depicted in a September calendar composition in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (between 1335 and 1350) of the narthex in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yflqj7y
cc) Cosmas (at left) and Damian as depicted in two joint portraits in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (between 1335 and 1350) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
1) http://tinyurl.com/37dfvns
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/phyo3s7
2) http://tinyurl.com/342o797
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/3ywlm9w
dd) Cosmas (at left) and Damian as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (between 1335 and 1350) in the chapel of St. Demetrius in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/82zvmvo
Detail view (Cosmas):
http://tinyurl.com/6pwhwm2
Detail view (Damian [at right]):
http://tinyurl.com/7vmhzmj
ee) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in a mid-fourteenth-century copy (1348; from the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston) of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 258r):
http://tinyurl.com/276u33e
ff) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in the later fourteenth-century frescoes (1360s and 1370s; restored in 1968-1970) in the church of St. Demetrius in Marko's monastery at Markova Sušica (near Skopje) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
Cosmas:
http://tinyurl.com/qypm9vn
Damian:
http://tinyurl.com/paswc8m
gg) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in a later fourteenth-century book of hours according to the Use of Besançon (before 1398; Vesoul, Bibliothèque municipale, fol. 119r):
http://tinyurl.com/ycm6r7l
hh) Cosmas and Damian (at left) as depicted in the late fourteenth-century fresco of the Annunciation with Saints (1380s or 1390s) in the Salone del Consiglio of Volterra's Palazzo dei Priori:
http://tinyurl.com/paxywen
ii) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1400; Rennes, Bibliothèque de Rennes Métropole, ms. 266, fol. 268v):
http://tinyurl.com/ozaozqh
jj) Cosmas and Damian as portrayed (lower register at centre) on their late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century reliquary shrine (c. 1400) in the St. Michaelskirche in Munich:
Detail view (Cosmas and Damian):
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Zywe3eg9L.jpg
kk) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in an earlier fifteenth-century icon in the Andrei Rublev Museum of Early Russian Art, Moscow:
http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=505
ll) Cosmas and Damian as depicted in the early fifteenth-century Châteauroux Breviary (c. 1414; Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, fol. 343v):
http://tinyurl.com/y8qvtr6
mm) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (martyrdom) in an early fifteenth-century copy (1419) of the Elsässische Legenda aurea (Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, fol. 131r):
http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg144/0277
nn) Cosmas and Damian as depicted by Giovanni da Modena in two earlier fifteenth-century panel paintings (c. 1425-1435) in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin:
oo) Cosmas and Damian as portrayed as portrayed by Donatello in an earlier fifteenth-century terracotta relief (between 1428 and 1445) in the old sacristy of Florence's basilica di San Lorenzo:
http://www.wga.hu/art/d/donatell/2_mature/sacristy/1sacri08.jpg
pp) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (being saved from drowning) by Zanobi Strozzi in an earlier fifteenth-century panel painting (c. 1435) in the Museo nazionale di San Marco in Florence:
http://www.wga.hu/art/s/strozziz/2/stcosmas.jpg
qq) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (scenes from their Passio; eight expandable thumbnails) by Beato Angelico in predella panels, now in several museums, from his earlier fifteenth-century San Marco altarpiece (between 1438 and 1440):
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/a/angelico/07/index.html
rr) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (flanking St. Lawrence of Rome) by Filippo Lippi in an earlier fifteenth-century panel painting (late 1440s) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
http://www.wga.hu/art/l/lippi/filippo/1450/3lawren.jpg
ss) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (portraits and scenes from their Passio) by Miguel Nadal in his mid-fifteenth-century altarpiece (1453) in the capilla de San Cosme y San Damián in the Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Barcelona:
tt) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (main panel: flanking the BVM and Christ Child; predella: scenes from their Passio) by Sano di Pietro in an altarpiece of c. 1456 in the Pinacoteca nazionale in Siena:
Detail view (predella panels: removing the dead Ethiopian's leg and attaching it to the sick white man):
uu) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (on the predella; portraits and two scenes from their Passio) by Jaume Huguet on his mid-fifteenth-century altarpiece of Sts. Abdon and Sennen (1459-1460) in the església de Santa Maria at Terrassa (prov. de Barcelona):
Detail view (portraits):
Detail view (attaching the black leg of the Ethiopian to the sick white man):
Detail view (their martyrdom and that of their brothers):
vv) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (attaching the black leg of the Ethiopian to the sick white man) by the Master of Los Balbases in a later fifteenth-century panel painting seemingly from Burgos and now in the Wellcome Library, London:
http://nicholasspyer.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/img_1500.jpg
[unfortunately this has been uploaded at right angles to its proper axis ]
ww) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (martyrdom) in a later fifteenth-century copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BmF, ms. Français 51, fol. 57r):
xx) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (martyrdom) by Jacques de Besançon in a late fifteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1480-1490; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 245, fol. 111r):
yy) Damian as depicted by Bartolomé Bermejo in a late fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1490) in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon:
zz) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (left margin, second from top) in a hand-coloured woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's late fifteenth-century Weltchronik (Nuremberg Chronicle; 1493) at fol. CXXIIIIv:
http://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/6th_age/left_page/28%20%28Folio%20CXXIIIIv%29.pdf
aaa) Cosmas and Damian as depicted by Dionisy and sons in the early sixteenth-century frescoes (1502) in the Virgin Nativity cathedral of the St. Ferapont Belozero (Ferapontov Belozersky) monastery at Ferapontovo in Russia's Vologda oblast:
Cosmas: http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/117/310/index.shtml
Damian: http://www.dionisy.com/eng/museum/121/320/index.shtml
bbb) Cosmas and Damian as depicted (flanking the BVM and Christ Child) in a remounted early sixteenth-century fresco (c. 1515) in the Pinacoteca civica in Como:
http://tinyurl.com/oole9wd
ccc) Cosmas and Damian as portrayed (attaching the black leg of the Ethiopian to the sick white man) in a mid-sixteenth-century polychromed and gilt wooden panel (c. 1547), attributed to Isidro de Villoldo, in the Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid:
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