Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome
Vol 45 (2000)
Article Abstract
Like a Virgin: The Meaning of the Magdalen for Female Penitents of
Later Medieval Italy
Katherine L. Jansen
This essay looks at the theme of the purification of Mary Magdalen as
transmitted in Italian textual and visual material of the fourteenth century.
The paper then considers how the image of the chaste Magdalen of hagiography,
sermons, and images was received by uncloistered religious women of central
Italy. Female penitents and their hagiographers understood Mary Magdalen's
great penance, her glorification in heaven, and her position at the head
of the chorus of virgins in the litany of saints to signify that the saint
had been restored to a virginal state. Accordingly, they responded enthusiastically
to the image of the sinner sanctified through penance and appealed to
the model of the Magdalen to subvert traditional notions of hierarchy
based on sexual status to claim heaven's highest rewards.
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