The inscription reads This panel was caused to be made by the convent chapter of the monastery of Santa Felicita, from money belonging to the said monastery at the time of the abbess Lorenza de' Mozzi in the year 1401.
The frame, ordered in 1395, alone cost 80 florins; the artists did not receive the commission until 1399. They charged 100 florins.

In 1457 Filippo Lippi painted a triptych (possibly this one) for Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici; it was intended as a gift to King Alfonso V of Naples, a minor ploy in Medici diplomacy. Filippo Lippi worked in Florence, Giovanni was sometimes out of the city, and Filippo tried to keep in touch by letter.
The letter expresses Filippo's concerns about materials and payments for the altarpiece.
Underneath the letter Filippo Lippi provided a sketch of the triptych as planned. Left to right, he sketched a St. Bernard, an Adoration of the Child and a St Michael; the frame of the altarpice, about which he is particularly asking approval, is drawn in a more finished way.