Herod's Banquet

Salome has danced for Herod, and her reward arrives: the head of John the Baptist carried in on a platter, while the court sits stunned along the table (Mark 6:21-28). Ghirlandaio stages the grim moment inside a serene, sunlit Renaissance loggia of coffered vaults and pilasters, thronged with finely dressed Florentines, many of them portraits of the Tornabuoni family who paid for the chapel. The contrast between courtly elegance and severed head is left for the viewer to feel. It belongs to his fresco cycle on the Baptist's life in Santa Maria Novella, the great showcase of late-Quattrocento Florence.