"The Feast of Herod"

According to the New Testament, Salome was granted a favour from Herod for her dancing and, under the influence of her mother, Herodias, made her demand. To relate the story visually, Lippi has conflated different episodes in this single fresco. The central section shows the dance of Salome, wearing the white dress, on the tiled floor. To our left (to the right of Herod) we have a second depiction of Salome, here receiving the plate on which sits the severed head. Both the head and Salome are colored in dark umber, perhaps signifying the merely physical death of the saint and the spiritual death of Salome for her mortal sin. There are also two Herodias figures. The first Herodias is seated at the centre. She is looking towards the second Herodias who is seated on the right with an expression of deep sorrow or shame as she receives the grisly presentation from a kneeling girl. She looks to us as if knowledgeable of her perdition, hued as she is, in an umber tone that symbolizes moral and spiritual darkness. 

Lippi's tableau is packed with symbols and gestures of disorder, from the expressions of the figures, the discord of the young couple on the extreme right, to the melancholic dancing of Salome. The picture itself seems to be an allegory on the joylessness and futility of terrestrial power and the ultimate accountability of tyranny and evil. Because Herod was aggrieved by Salome's request, Lippi paints him in a somewhat equivocal moral position. His gaze outward could be a dissociation from the deed but it could also be a register of his shock, or even a surrender to the moral judgement of the viewer. The figure in black with outstretched hands looking with disgust at the queen is striding away from the company. This figure has been held to be Lippi's young self-portrait. It signals revulsion and the sole point of sympathy in the whole fresco.