Image Details

Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS. Laur. Edili 126, Fol. 83/Ministero Per I Beni Culturali E Ambientali

Putting the king in check. A square-jawed Esther aggressively confronts the king, in this illumination from the early-12th-century Florence Cathedral Bible. At her Uncle Mordecai’s recommendation, the young Jewish queen unabashedly requested an audience with the king—an action punishable by death—so that she could obtain the king’s promise to prevent a massacre of the Jews planned by the king’s minister, Haman.