Saint Mary Magdalene Penitent and Eight Scenes from Her Life

The scroll in Mary Magdalene's hand speaks to the viewer in Latin. Do not despair, it says, you who are used to sinning, and by my example make your peace with God. The panel was painted around 1280 to 1285 and probably stood on the screen of a Florentine church, the partition that kept the clergy apart from lay people. Its words faced the sinners they address. Around the saint, eight small scenes tell her story as medieval Florence knew it, among them the raising of her brother Lazarus, her preaching in Marseille, an angel feeding her, and her funeral. The painter is known only as the Master of the Magdalen, and he is at his liveliest in these little scenes. In the centre her hair covers her to the ankles, drawn strand by strand in fine brown lines.