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The story of young Salome, whose dancing charmed King Herod, thus enabling her to obtain the severed head of John the Baptist, was frequently depicted in Italian Renaissance art. By reading a selection of images from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries against a text by Francesco da Barberino from the fourteenth century, this article explores evolving perceptions of the young Salome, and of dancing, at the very end of the Middle Ages, indicating a nuancing of the violent clerical condemnations of earlier periods.