Lontana dal peccato, vicina al perdono. L’iconografia di Maria di Magdala. Dalle origini alla prima età bizantina: una rilettura di temi evangelici tra Oriente e Occidente

The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that the idea of Mary Magdalen as a sinner is a late conquest of the Medieval iconography. The many artistic testimonies chosen for this paper show that, at least in the early Christian Art and in the first Byzantine Art, Mary Magdalen represents umility and obedience, love, sorrow, and spirituality. Two different textual and iconographical traditions can be recognized: one in the Occidental world, that saw Mary Magdalen as the same person of Mary of Betania (sister of Lazarus) and the anonymous sinner of the seven demons, and another in the Oriental world, where all these women are different persons. So the figure of Magdalen can be surely recognized in the scenes of Passion cycle, both in Orient and Occident. But in the scene of the Resurrection of Lazarus, Mary Magdalen is recognizable in the West, but not in the East. In all the selected themes, anyway, she is never depicted as a sinner, but as a faithful and grateful woman, because of the will to let her seem a noble woman, and not a simple prostitute. The Early Christian and Byzantine Arts, so, chose to give her a 'clean' image, to amplify the values she brought in her essence: she had to be a positive example of complete redemption and forgiveness.