The Madonna and Child with Saints Joseph, Catherine and Agnes

Look at the two women and you are looking at an argument. When the Brera catalogued this altarpiece early in the last century, Malaguzzi Valeri in 1908 and Modigliani in 1935 both read one of them as Mary Magdalene. The museum's label today says Catherine, and the reason is the lamb. A lamb belongs to Agnes, so Agnes is the woman it was painted for, and the Child has reached out and taken hold of it, which turns the animal into something else as well, a sign of the sacrifice ahead of him. Campi signed the canvas in capitals at the lower left and painted it around 1570, more than two metres tall, for a church altar. The oddest figure is Joseph. He is not part of the group at all. He has pulled a curtain aside at the back and is watching from the shadow.