The chapel of the courtesan and the quarrel of the Magdalens

(9.) Museo del Prado, inv. no. 323, panel, 7 ft. 3 in. by 5 ft. 3 in. (2.2 by 1.6 m). The painting was acquired by the museum in 1872, as noted in Rafael en Espana, exh. cat., Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1985, 161, cat. no. 21. The copy that replaced the original in the chapel in the 19th century (noted by Pistolesi in n. 6 above) at some later date went to Naples, where it is now in the Pinacoteca. It is mentioned by Ferdinando Bologna, Roviale spagnuolo e la pittura napoletana del cinquecento (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1959), 73-74.

(10.) Mary Magdalen's encounter with Christ is described in both Mark 16:9-20 and John 20:14-18. The representation of Christ as a gardener in the altarpiece is based on John 20:15: "Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?' Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.'"

(11.) An example of the print is in the print collection of the British Museum, inv. no. 1874-6-13-620. It is signed in the lower left, "Joannes baptista de Cavalleris / incidebat 1570" and inscribed in the lower margin, "NOLI ME TANGERE NONDVM ENIM ASCENDI AD PATREM 10.XX." The line is from John 20 (as indicated in the inscription), verse 17: "'Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.'"

(12.) Cecil Gould, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Schools, National Gallery Catalogues (London: National Gallery Publications, 1975), 120, cat. no. 225. According to Gould, the fresco was transferred and mounted on canvas in the 19th century and cleaned and remounted on a rigid support in 1969. The lunette-shaped fragment, formerly in the possession of M. Joly de Bammeville, had been presented by Lord Overstone to the National Gallery in 1852. In 1870, Mrs. Jameson described it as "cut from the walls of the chapel in the Trinita dei Monti." Mrs. Jameson [Anna Brownell Murphy], Sacred and Legendary Art, 6th ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1870), 374.

(13.) Bartsch, no. 388. The print is reproduced in Henry Zerner, Ecole de Fontainebleau: Gravures (Paris: Arts et Metiers Graphiques, 1969), as L.D. 73. The artist of the print increased the drama of the scene by heightening the sense of ecstasy through the addition of rays of light flashing out from the central group and by altering facial expressions, most notably that of the topmost angel and to a lesser degree that of the Magdalen herself.

(14.) Mariette, 284-86.

(15.) Ibid., 284. The print, with Marcantonio's blank tablet in the lower right, is listed in Bartsch, no. 23. Mariette also mentions a copy of the print dated 1530 with the initials IF in the tablet. Bartsch lists this as copy B, by an anonymous engraver. IF has been identified as Jacopo Francia. It may be noted that Parmigianino made a drawing after the print (collection of G. M. Gathorne-Hardy, Donnington Priory, Newbury, Eng.), an anonymous copy of which is in the Art Museum at Princeton University. See Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 131, cat. no. 433.