Guided Pathway

If the images considered in Sequence 1, Step 1 refer to the action of carrying an object, other images in panel 46 include, besides the performer of the carrying, the recipient of the action as well: homo ferens becomes homo offerens. This is the case of #1 (a scene of homage paid to the enthroned king with various gift-carriers represented on the helmet of Agilulf, king of the Lombards), of #6.1 (where Ghirlandaio’s canephore [basket-carrying] servant of #6.2 is to be understood in the broader context of the event of the birth of John the Baptist), of #15 (female carriers bringing a plate with food and a jug in Alfonso Lombardi’s bas-relief representing the birth of Esau and Jacob on San Petronio’s portal in Bologna), and of #20 (Venus and the three Graces offering an homage to a young lady – possibly Giovanna Tornabuoni – in Botticelli’s fresco from Villa Lemmi near Florence). The act of giving homage can be gegenstandslos (non-objectual), as well, manifesting itself exclusively in a peculiar bodily posture of the subject giving homage, which expresses a moral and psychological attitude of respect or submission: this is the case with #8.1 (the Jewish girl Esther, belonging to the Persian king Ahasuerus’ harem, kneeling down in front of him in order to save the Jews from extermination – Book of Esther 7:1-4 –, as represented by an illuminated page of the Istorie in rima by Lucrezia Tornabuoni, who was Lorenzo de’ Medici’s mother).