Saint Thomas Aquinas at the Table of King Louis the Saint

There is an old story about Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican theologian, dining at the court of Louis IX, the French king later made a saint. Lost in an argument in his own head, he sat silent through the feast, then suddenly struck the table: he had found the point he needed against a heresy he had been turning over. Niklaus Manuel painted that moment around 1517, in Bern, for a city whose Dominican friars would have known the tale by heart. The guests wear the fashions of Manuel's own day rather than 13th-century France, and the meal itself, the gold cups and dishes crowding the table, is painted with evident relish.