“Cosimo de’ Medici had himself painted as Saint Cosmas in the most overdecorated cell in the monastery,” Girolamo says. “And if he paid for the monastery, he also put his balls all over it, like a dog spraying every street corner. And for all his famed piety, he said the city can’t be governed by saying Our Father.”
Balls, specifically a pawnbroker's balls, are the Medici symbol.
