Forlì, San Domenico Museums' major exhibition in 2022 is dedicated to Mary Magdalene

The Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì today unveiled the theme of the major exhibition of 2022 at the San Domenico Museums in Forlì: it is an exhibition dedicated to a great female myth of our history, a mysterious and misrepresented figure, that of Mary Magdalene. Art, literature and cinema have dedicated hundreds of works and events to her. Art especially, placing her at the center of its production and giving birth to masterpieces that mark, along the fabric of time, the history of art itself and its developments. From March 4 to June 26, 200 works, from the third century AD to the 20th century, gathered for the exhibition Magdalene. The Mystery and the Image (curated by Cristina Acidini, Paola Refice, Fernando Mazzocca), will tell who Magdalene was, why that confusing, fascinating sequence of representations that led to the construction of her multifaceted identity was generated and developed, and in a nutshell what is the mystery of a woman named Mary that still disquiets and fascinates.

Divided into eleven sections, the itinerary includes painting, sculpture, miniatures, tapestries, silverware and graphic works, and winds its way through the greatest names of every era. Artists such as Antonio Canova, Bartolomeo Vivarini, the Garofalo, Alessandro Allori, Guido Cagnacci, Guido Reni, Alonso Cano, Francesco Hayez, Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Jules Lefebvre, Jean Beraud, Gaetano Previati, Renato Guttuso, Gerardo Dottori, and many others will figure. Conceived and realized by the Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì in collaboration with the Municipality of Forlì and the San Domenico Museums, the exhibition benefits from a prestigious scientific committee chaired by Antonio Paolucci and the general direction of Gianfranco Brunelli. The exhibition project brings masterpieces from the most important national and international institutions to Italy. The exhibition itinerary, curated in its layout by the studios Wilmotte et Associés of Paris and Lucchi & Biserni of Forlì, will take place inside the Church of San Giacomo and the large rooms that constituted the library of the Convent of San Domenico and will be accompanied by a catalog published by Silvana Editoriale.

“We could call the 2022 exhibition at the San Domenico Museums in Forlì the tale of tales,” stresses Gianfranco Brunelli, director of the exhibition. “In this single woman, countless other female figures have agglutinated and blended over the centuries, and she has become from time to time a symbol of sin and repentance, fidelity and suffering, obsession and love, fecundity and wisdom, carnality and holiness, humanity and protest, creating a narrative plot that, especially through art, has made her the ’dark object of desire’ of our history. And as in a game of superimpositions, of interchangeable figures (play of words through faces; superimposition of faces giving birth to new words) the multiplication of meanings throughout the centuries makes complex both the reconstruction of the formidable gallery of images that have represented her and made her legendary, and, even more, the rediscovery (if at all possible) of her authentic identity. Art has dealt with her, finding interpretative opportunities to redefine herself time after time and represent the sentiment of her time, until she was transformed into a myth. The Forlì exhibition of 2022 intends to investigate, through some of the most precious and fascinating works of art (masterpieces from all times, from the 3rd century A.D. to the 20th century) that have imagined and depicted her, the unresolved mystery, which still disquiets and fascinates us, of a woman named Mary.”

“Around the Gospel figure of Mary of Magdala, the Magdalene, with her multiple and sometimes elusive identity, artists have created complex and changing iconographies over the centuries, destined for great success and widespread diffusion,” explains curator Cristina Acidini. “This exhibition presents them, shedding light on the layers of scriptural, devotional and legendary origin, while at the same time admitting and illustrating the extraordinary wealth of images generated by the character Magdalene in painting and sculpture. Beginning with the time of Giotto and continuing with Masaccio and the early Florentine Renaissance, Magdalene is the most beautiful and distraught mourner at the foot of the cross: her long blond hair and bright red robe or cloak are her hallmarks as the redeemed sinner. But she is also the prayerful, emaciated woman who spends her last years in hermitic penance, in the desert of Egypt. And to this Mary Magdalene, the Egyptian, painters and sculptors attribute, according to her legend, hollowed-out features, pious attitude and, above all, a long mantle of hair grown in wild, dark locks, which entirely cover her instead of her robes. If Donatello’s is the most dramatic and famous Egyptian Mary, many others are the artists of his time who tried their hand at this moving iconography, even depicting (as Antonio del Pollaiolo masterfully does) her assumption from the hermitage to Heaven. Magdalene, however, has many other faces. She is the myrrhophora, with the jar of balsam (Bachiacca’s elegant and mysterious, among the Florentines); she is, with Martha, the hostess who welcomes Jesus to her table, as inAlessandro Allori’s splendid evocation; she is the pious woman solitary under the Crucifix, as in Signorelli, or nocturnal near the tomb, as in Savoldo. As the sixteenth century progressed, penitent Magdalene are no longer emaciated, but florid and discreet in the partial veil of thick hair. Though shown in the act of reading or meditating, they convey a bursting sensuality that will sublimate into ecstasy in the Baroque age.”

“Mary of Magdala, the Magdalene, is among the most depicted figures in art history,” Paola Refice points out. “Yet the multiple iconographies that personify her name reflect a complex and contradictory tradition. The Gospels mention her in Galilee, among the women following Jesus and again on Calvary and then at the empty tomb of the Risen One, together with Mary, mother of James and Mary Salome. With the Pious Women she appears in the earliest representations of Christian art, beginning with the precious wall paintings of the Domus Ecclesiae in Dura Europos, Syria,dating from the fifth decade of the third century, to admirable reliefs and refined miniatures that would pervade the Middle Ages, declining until the following centuries into theatrical forms in the Sacred Representations, illustrated in the exhibition by the most famous Passions. Mary Magdalene sought and obtained the Savior’s consideration by showing up, an unexpected guest, in the Pharisee’s House, where she anoints his feet with precious ointments, drying them with the long hair that makes her image instantly recognizable. The cruet with the fragrant oils will become her iconographic attribute. Distressed, isolated at the foot of the Cross, she will alternate in the works of the 14th century with St. Francis, depicted in the act of collecting the blood that gushes from the wounds of the Crucified, in an apotheosis of pain perpetuated up to the great masters of our age. She, a woman, will have the good fortune to meet the Risen One: and the tale of their encounter-the Noli me tangere-is among the subjects dearest to Western art even beyond Romanticism. But the misunderstanding out of which, paradoxically, the most fruitful of Magdalene’s iconographic events comes to life is that which makes her a sinner. Freed (witnesses Mark and Luke) from the seven demons by which she was possessed, she becomes in Scripture commentaries a prostitute. It is Gregory the Great, in the late 6th century, who ratifies the unification among various female figures under one name. Emaciated as Mary of Egypt, she follows its fate in a repentance that bears the burden of all humanity and that, having achieved catharsis and atonement, will elevate her to heavenly honors. Her penitence will become a pretext, even at the height of the Counter-Reformation, for representing her naked flesh. Those of the body marked by atonement will alternate, multiplying in number and characterizing different cultures and schools, with the famous representations charged with sensuality and pure beauty. The exhibition wants to compose the tale of this paradox, this richness of themes, showing masterpieces dedicated to her and composingfor figurasuna substantial unity of the character, an embodiment of the feminine that transcends the limits of time.”

Image: Antonio Canova, Penitent Magdalene (1809; marble, 95 x 70 x 77 cm; St. Petersburg, Hermitage)

Forlì, San Domenico Museums' major exhibition in 2022 is dedicated to Mary Magdalene

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