Elevazione della Maddalena

The medieval legend held that after Christ's death Mary Magdalene withdrew to a cave in the wilderness and lived as a hermit for 30 years, her body wasted by fasting, lifted into the air by angels at the hours of prayer. That is the moment Pollaiuolo paints, around 1460: the saint borne up on a cluster of angels, one of them bringing her the communion host. It was made for the parish church of a small Tuscan village, Staggia, paid for by a local man who had gone to Florence to work as a notary. The panel then dropped out of record for centuries and was only rediscovered in the village in 1899. Her long streaming hair, covering her like a garment, follows a type Florentines knew from Donatello's gaunt wooden Magdalen.