This group of six monumental marble statues, depicting saints and prophets in ancient attire—four of them headless and four flanked by pairs of adoring angels—was sculpted at the end of the 14th century. They originally stood in the tabernacles on the second level of the medieval façade of the Cathedral, flanking the central portal. From left to right, the figures include: a possible prophet by Jacopo di Piero Guidi, Saint Barnabas by Giovanni d’Ambrogio, Saint Lawrence by Piero di Giovanni Tedesco; and on the opposite side, Saint Stephen and Saint Victor, both by Piero di Giovanni Tedesco. The final statue, an older work by Andrea Pisano (1340–1343), depicts a headless Saint Lawrence. The angels were sculpted by Piero di Giovanni Tedesco, except for one (the second from the left), which is a 19th-century cast—the original is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

After the façade was dismantled, these sculptures were relocated: the headless saints were moved to the courtyard of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, where they were reinterpreted as ancient philosophers, while the angels were recovered in 1936 from various locations, including the Medici Villa of Castello, the Boboli Gardens, and Vincigliata Castle. Over time, some of these sculptures ended up in private collections and later in foreign museums. In addition to the angel now in New York, another angel is housed in the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, while the statues of Saints Stephen and Lawrence are in the Louvre, where they have been replaced here by historic casts.

The saints depicted hold particular significance for the Florentine Church: Lawrence and Stephen were associated with the congregations of the nearby churches dedicated to them, while the feasts of Saints Barnabas and Victor coincided with key Florentine military victories—against the Aretines at Campaldino in 1289 and against the Pisans at Cascina in 1364, respectively.