References in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists are taken by some to date the work to 1528–1529, the years immediately after Pontormo painted the Capponi Chapel.

[1] The work was produced for the monastery of Sant'Anna in Verzaia outside Florence's Porta San Frediano, hence the presence of Saint Anne.

From left to right the other saints are Sebastian in green, Peter in saffron and blue, the Good Thief, and Benedict of Nursia in a monk's habit.

Until 1370 the monastery's church was the halfway point of a procession on Saint Anne's feast day (26 July) to commemorate the city's "liberation" from the Duke of Athens.

The medallion at the foot of the Madonna's throne shows a group of people from the procession, including an infantry captain (the work's commissioner), the heads of companies, trumpeters, pipers, dealers, "commanders" and "benchers".