The chapel of the courtesan and the quarrel of the Magdalens

When Raphael died in 1520 his workshop in Rome was jointly inherited by dint of his two leading pupils, Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni. Among the numerous throws they undertook before Giulio's departure from Rome for Mantua in 1524 was the decoration of a chapel dedicated to Mary MAGDALEN in the house of worship of SS. Trinita dei Monti in Rome (1) Giorgio Vasari give in charges to the project twice in the 1568 edition of the Vite. In his life of the painter Perino del Vaga he states that Giulio Romano and Penni painted "four shows in fresco of St. Mary Magdalen in the lunette and an altarpiece in oil of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen in the guise of a gardener." (2) In his life of the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, he notes that Marcantonio engraved prints of "the four representations of the Magdalen and the four evangelists in the vault of the chapel in the Trinita." Of special interest, however, is Vasari's remark that these paintings were done for "a prostitute [una meretrice]. " (3) This information is repeated by dint of Vasari i n his statement that the face of the dead woman carved upon top of a marble sarcophagus plant against one wall of the chapel was a portrait of "a real famous courtesan of Rome [una famosissima cortigiana di Roma]" (4)

Assuming Vasari is correct in stating that the chapel's decorations were commissioned through a courtesan (and there looks to be no good reason to doubt him), the throw out raises questions about the status and part of courtesans in early sixteenth-century Roman society. During this period, courtesans in Rome were tolerated and accepted at the highest horizontals of society. At the same time, the temple actively encouraged prostitutes and courtesans to come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind the example of Mary Magdalen, who had become established as the paradigm of the penitent prostitute. The choice of sights from the life and doubtful narrative of Mary Magdalen therefore suited the decoration of a chapel for a presumably repentant courtesan. Moreover, it can be shown that the frescoe also serv to reaffirm the Church's belief in Mary Magdalen's identification as a prostitute at a time when this long-held tradition was being challenged by the agency of the French humanist Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples.

The chapel (the fifth upon the left from the entrance; the third upon the left from the altar) did not remain the courtesan's for lengthy In 1537 it was ced to Angelo Massimi, who commissioned Perino del Vaga to paint frescoe upon each of the lateral walls and upon the pilasters on either side of the entrance. (5) To a certain expanse Perino's frescoes continue the decorative program begun through Giulio Romano and Penni by means of including imagery that emphasizes the traditional identity of Mary Magdalen. The paintings from the one and the other projects evidently survived until the early nineteenth hundred when they were removed to make way for a consummate redecoration of the chapel. (6) Although Perino del Vaga's contributions have been examined, the cast undertaken by Giulio Romano and Penni has received little scholarly attention. (7)

Reconstructing the Chapel's Decorations

The chapel's altarpiece (8) has been identified as the Noli me tangere now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid (Fig. 1) (9) The painting exhibits the Magdalen on the right reaching toward Christ, who, with his left hand reach outed appears to both warn her away and bles her at the same time. (10) A print engraved by means of Giovanni Battista Cavalieri in 1570 generates the altarpiece with a fair step of accuracy (Fig. 2). (11)

Besides the altarpiece, individual of the lunettes, depicting Mary Magdalen Borne Up through Angels, has also survived and is now in the National Gallery, London (Fig. 3) (12) It displays Mary Magdalen, nude but for her covering of hair, reclining amid hazes and sustained by six angels. The fresco is also known from one side an engraving attributed to Leon Davent in which the design has been adjusted to suit a circular format (Fig. 4) (13) Below the main figure clump has been added a view of a mountain, presumably the massif near Marseilles in the southerly of France where Mary Magdalen supposedly lived in the cave of La Ste-Baume for the last thirty years of her life. Although it appear to bes likely that all four lunette frescoe were remov from the walls at the same time that the chapel was dismembered, the other three apparently have not survived. However, the pageants in two of the lunette were reproduc as Vasari states, in engravings. Helpfully, Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774) writing in the eighteenth hundred before the chape l was redecorated, described the disposition of each of the frescoe in the chapel and identified the engravings associated with them. (14)

The first sight described by Mariette is Mary Magdalen Anointing Christ's Feet in the House of Simon the Pharisee, which he associates with the print of the same make subordinate by Marcantonio (Fig. 5). (15) Mariette states that the fresco was in the lunette above the stained-glass, or leaded-glass, window ("du vitrail") above the altar. The upper arch of the replete lunette shape, although not indicated in the print, can be easily imagined as fitting above the design. Directly opposite, above the arched entrance to the chapel, appeared Martha Leading Mary Magdalen to Christ, (16) which is reproduc in Marcantonio's print (Fig. 6) (17) sum of two units drawings of the scene survive, individual in Munich and the other in Chatsworth (Fig. 7) (18) In the couple drawings, the upper portion is curv reflecting the upper arch of the lunette Besides the upper arch of the lunette the original fresco had also to accommodate the bend of the entrance arch. Although not indicated in either drawing, this lower bend can be easily imagined below the fi gure eliminating in the fresco the otherwise without contents steps in the foreground. Details of the display recall Raphael's tapestry design for Saint Paul Preaching in Athens, which Marcantonio engraved about 1515-16 (Fig. 8) (19) In particular, a correspondence may be noted between the figure at the left in the pair scenes watching with bearded chin in hand as well as the figure of Dionysius the Areopagite, changeed by Saint Paul's preaching, upon the right in the single print and the figure with a similar open-armed gesturing in the center background of the other. The visual correspondence be subservient tos to underscore the theme of conversion.