Saint Mary Magdalene

Around 1490 in Florence, Piero di Cosimo gave the Magdalene an unexpected setting. Instead of the wild desert penitent that tradition favoured, she sits at a windowsill, a young woman quietly reading. Everything about her belongs to Piero's own city: the fashionable multicoloured gown, the neat framing architecture, the open book beneath her hands. The only signs that this is a saint at all are the long loose hair falling over her shoulder and the small jar of ointment on the ledge, the one she was said to have carried to Christ's tomb. Scholars have long suspected she is a real Florentine woman, perhaps one named Maria, who had herself painted in the guise of her name-saint.