The chapel of the courtesan and the quarrel of the Magdalens.

When Raphael died in 1520, his workshop in Rome was jointly inherited by his two leading pupils, Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni. Among the numerous projects they undertook before Giulio's departure from Rome for Mantua in 1524 was the decoration of a chapel dedicated to Mary MAGDALEN in the church of SS. Trinita dei Monti in Rome. (1) Giorgio Vasari refers to the project twice in the 1568 edition of the Vite. In his life of the painter Perino del Vaga he states that Giulio Romano and Penni painted "four scenes in fresco of St. Mary Magdalen in the lunettes and an altarpiece in oil of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen in the guise of a gardener." (2) In his life of the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, he notes that Marcantonio engraved prints of "the four scenes of the Magdalen and the four evangelists in the vault of the chapel in the Trinita." Of special interest, however, is Vasari's comment that these paintings were done for "a prostitute [una meretrice]. " (3) This information is repeated by Vasari i n his statement that the face of the dead woman carved on top of a marble sarcophagus set against one wall of the chapel was a portrait of "a very famous courtesan of Rome [una famosissima cortigiana di Roma]" (4)

Assuming Vasari is correct in stating that the chapel's decorations were commissioned by a courtesan (and there seems to be no good reason to doubt him), the project raises questions about the status and role of courtesans in early sixteenth-century Roman society. During this period, courtesans in Rome were tolerated and accepted at the highest levels of society. At the same time, the Church actively encouraged prostitutes and courtesans to follow the example of Mary Magdalen, who had become established as the paradigm of the penitent prostitute. The choice of scenes from the life and legend of Mary Magdalen therefore suited the decoration of a chapel for a presumably repentant courtesan. Moreover, it can be shown that the frescoes also served to reaffirm the Church's belief in Mary Magdalen's identification as a prostitute at a time when this long-held tradition was being challenged by the French humanist Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples.

The chapel (the fifth on the left from the entrance; the third on the left from the altar) did not remain the courtesan's for long. In 1537 it was ceded to Angelo Massimi, who commissioned Perino del Vaga to paint frescoes on each of the lateral walls and on the pilasters on either side of the entrance. (5) To a certain extent, Perino's frescoes continue the decorative program begun by Giulio Romano and Penni by including imagery that emphasizes the traditional identity of Mary Magdalen. The paintings from both projects evidently survived until the early nineteenth century, when they were removed to make way for a complete redecoration of the chapel. (6) Although Perino del Vaga's contributions have been examined, the project undertaken by Giulio Romano and Penni has received little scholarly attention. (7)

Reconstructing the Chapel's Decorations

The chapel's altarpiece (8) has been identified as the Noli me tangere now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid (Fig. 1). (9) The painting shows the Magdalen on the right reaching toward Christ, who, with his left hand extended, appears to both warn her away and bless her at the same time. (10) A print engraved by Giovanni Battista Cavalieri in 1570 reproduces the altarpiece with a fair degree of accuracy (Fig. 2). (11)

Besides the altarpiece, one of the lunettes, depicting Mary Magdalen Borne Up by Angels, has also survived and is now in the National Gallery, London (Fig. 3). (12) It shows Mary Magdalen, nude but for her covering of hair, reclining amid clouds and sustained by six angels. The fresco is also known through an engraving attributed to Leon Davent in which the design has been adjusted to suit a circular format (Fig. 4) (13) Below the main figure group has been added a view of a mountain, presumably the massif near Marseilles in the south of France where Mary Magdalen supposedly lived in the cave of La Ste-Baume for the last thirty years of her life. Although it seems likely that all four lunette frescoes were removed from the walls at the same time that the chapel was dismembered, the other three apparently have not survived. However, the scenes in two of the lunettes were reproduced, as Vasari states, in engravings. Helpfully, Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774), writing in the eighteenth century before the chape l was redecorated, described the disposition of each of the frescoes in the chapel and identified the engravings associated with them. (14)

The first scene described by Mariette is Mary Magdalen Anointing Christ's Feet in the House of Simon the Pharisee, which he associates with the print of the same subject by Marcantonio (Fig. 5). (15) Mariette states that the fresco was in the lunette over the stained-glass, or leaded-glass, window ("du vitrail") above the altar. The upper arch of the full lunette shape, although not indicated in the print, can be easily imagined as fitting over the design. Directly opposite, above the arched entrance to the chapel, appeared Martha Leading Mary Magdalen to Christ, (16) which is reproduced in Marcantonio's print (Fig. 6). (17) Two drawings of the scene survive, one in Munich and the other in Chatsworth (Fig. 7). (18) In both drawings, the upper portion is curved, reflecting the upper arch of the lunette. Besides the upper arch of the lunette, the original fresco had also to accommodate the curve of the entrance arch. Although not indicated in either drawing, this lower curve can be easily imagined below the fi gures, eliminating in the fresco the otherwise empty steps in the foreground. Details of the scene recall Raphael's tapestry design for Saint Paul Preaching in Athens, which Marcantonio engraved about 1515-16 (Fig. 8). (19) In particular, a correspondence may be noted between the figure at the left in both scenes watching with bearded chin in hand as well as the figure of Dionysius the Areopagite, converted by Saint Paul's preaching, on the right in the one print and the figure with a similar open-armed gesture in the center background of the other. The visual correspondence serves to underscore the theme of conversion.

Mariette notes that, contrary to Vasari's statement, the remaining two scenes were not engraved by Marcantonio. He does, however, specify the scenes occupying the lateral lunettes in the chapel as Mary Magdalen in the Desert and Mary Magdalen Borne Up by Angels, which is identified with the fresco fragment in London. (20) Unfortunately, no clue remains to indicate what the fresco of Mary Magdalen in the Desert may have looked like.

"A Very Famous Courtesan of Rome"

As mentioned earlier, at one point Vasari describes the patroness of the chapel as a prostitute (meretrice) and at another as a very famous courtesan ("una famosissima cortigiana"). The word meretrice dates back to ancient Rome. (21) The word cortigiana, however, originated in the Renaissance, having emerged within the culture of the courts in the latter part of the fifteenth century. Through obvious association with the name cortigiano, the male courtier, made famous by Baldassare Castiglione, it effectively elevated the status of the prostitute and suggested that, like the cortigiano, the cortigiana was a woman of breeding and virtue. Cortigiana, or courtesan, was used to describe a high-priced prostitute, distinguished from the puttana, or common prostitute, whose sexual services cost much less. (22) However, by the second decade of the sixteenth century, cortigiana had come to be applied generally to all women of ill repute, though distinctions were still made; in the census taken during the reign of Pope Leo X, a prostitute fell into one of three categories: cortesana puttana, cortesana da lume or da candela, or cortesana onesta. (23) The last category of "honest or respectable courtesan" (also given in Latin as meretrix honesta) appears as early as 1501 in the diary of Johann Burchard, the master of ceremonies to Pope Alexander VI, who recorded that fifty "meretrices honestae, cortegianae nuncupatae" attended a dinner given by Cesare Borgia, the duke of Valentino, in the Palazzo Apostolico on October 31. (24)

In referring to the patroness of the Magdalen Chapel as "a very famous courtesan," Vasari was probably describing a cortigiana onesta. The cortigiana onesta was a successful prostitute, a woman who had acquired conspicuous wealth through first attracting and then catering to wealthy clients. More than this, in modern parlance she was a woman who had acquired celebrity status and who used the opportunities that such status offered for psychological and social maneuvering. This status brought her a certain social prominence and, with it, a measure of admiration, if not tolerance. (25) Her wealthy and powerful clients added to her prominence, which thereby increased both her prestige and theirs. During the reign of Pope Leo X (1513-21) courtesans in Rome enjoyed an extraordinary social position. In the learned, Grecophile culture of the Medici pope's court, courtesans were regarded as latter-day reincarnations of hetairai, the women who entertained men at the symposium in ancient Greece. (26) This identificatio n as hetairai offered some women a rare opportunity for independent social and educational advancement, which they could take advantage of to exercise their intellectual abilities and display qualities of mind otherwise denied them because of their status as women. It was possible for a successful courtesan to acquire a measure of wealth and independence, and thereby the means and opportunity to pursue other interests. Later in the century the courtesans Gaspara Stampa, Veronica Franco, and Tullia d'Aragona, for example, made significant contributions to the poetry of the period. (27)

Despite official disapproval and occasional campaigns against it, prostitution had long been tolerated by the Church as a necessary evil. This attitude was partly the legacy of ancient Rome. (28) The Church Fathers perpetuated the ambivalence over the legal status of prostitutes found in the Roman civil laws compiled by Emperor Theodosius in the fifth century and Justinian in the sixth and codified in the Corpus Juris Civilis. Medieval lawyers and theologians, while condemning prostitution as sinful, nonetheless found it necessary to tolerate it partly out of recognition of the fact that it was too deeply embedded in the fabric of social and sexual relationships to be easily eradicated. (29) From the Church's point of view, tolerating prostitution helped to prevent greater evils. In De ordine, Augustine, in a passage quoted by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa theologiae, states, "Taking away prostitutes from human affairs would stir up all licentiousness." As Aquinas graphically explained, prostitution was like a sewer in a palace; if the sewer were removed, the palace would fill with filth. (30)

Prostitution began to flourish in Rome in the fifteenth century as the papacy reestablished itself in the city following the period of the "Babylonian captivity" in Avignon (1309-78) and the disorder of the Great Schism (1378-1417). Because of the large number of clergy, and an even larger number of laymen who flocked to Rome seeking benefices and positions in the papal court, the city's population contained a high ratio of men to women. The heyday of the courtesan in Rome lasted more or less from the end of the fifteenth century to the invasion and sack by Charles V in 1527. It was toward the end of this period that the Magdalen Chapel in SS. Trinita dei Monti was decorated for "a very famous courtesan.

The toleration of courtesans in Rome during these years may be due initially to an apparent acceptance of the status of mistress or concubine, especially among the higher clergy, including the pope. Though by no means a new phenomenon in Rome, beginning with the Borgia pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503), papal mistresses were openly acknowledged. Even before his election, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia made no attempt to conceal his mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei. (31) After she bore him four children, Cardinal Rodrigo replaced her as his mistress with Giulia Farnese, whom he continued to keep after he was elected pope; Burchard referred to her almost matter-of-factly in passing, and without further comment, as "the pope's concubine." (32)

During these same years, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who became Pope Julius II in 1503, maintained a mistress named Lucrezia, who bore him three daughters. Besides Lucrezia, Julius II also kept a mistress named Masina, who had previously been a courtesan. (33) These mistresses were supported in considerable style by their paramours, who showered on them various luxuries and gifts, including houses and other property. Cesare Borgia's mistress, Fiammetta, for example, owned three houses and a vigna at the time she made out her will on February 19, 1512. (34)

The line separating a mistress from a courtesan was no doubt for some nonexistent; a discarded mistress could become a courtesan, just as a courtesan could become a mistress. (35) This was the case, for example, with the courtesan Imperia, who, after liaisons with, among others, the learned Angelo Colocci, the classicists Filippo Beroaldo and Giacomo Sadoleto, the papal librarian and orator Tommaso Inghirami, and various cardinals, became the mistress of the powerful Sienese banker Agostino Chigi. (36) By this time, the courtesan had reached the acme of her status in the papal city. Besides Imperia, the names and activities of a number of the more successful courtesans have been recorded. For example, the courtesan Beatrice Ferrarese entertained Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino. (37) Other well-known courtesans of the time include Lorenzina, Angela Greca, and a woman known as Matrema non vole (My mother doesn't want me to).

These courtesans moved in the highest levels of society as the intimate guests and fashionable companions of wealthy clients, including important prelates and noted humanists. In a letter dated March 13, 1519, it is reported that Matrema non vole and two other courtesans dined in the company of Cardinals Rossi, Cibo, Salviati, and Ridolfi as guests of Lorenzo Strozzi, a relative of Lorenzo de' Medici. (38) Among these important men can be identified a number who were friends and patrons of Raphael. That Raphael moved in these circles is attested to by the portraits he painted of courtesans, probably, it may be guessed, at the behest of these same men. In particular, Vasari refers to Raphael painting a portrait of Beatrice Ferrarese and of other women ("ed altre donne"). (39) Giulio Romano was also familiar with Rome's courtesans and their patrons. Around the time of Raphael's death, or shortly thereafter, Gluijo was involved in the decoration of Baldassare Turini's Villa Lante on the Gianicolo in Rome, where , among other things, he painted the so-called room of the loves of Raphael, which included portraits of purported courtesans in medallions. (40) During these same years he also painted the three-quarter-length nude Donna allo specchio, usually identified as a courtesan and now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and Two Lovers, now in the Hermitage, showing a courtesan and her male lover on a bed with a procuress peeking in at the couple from a doorway on the right. (41) This same motif of the observing procuress appears in one of the prints in the notorious series of pornographic designs by Giulio illustrating various positions of copulation between men and women. (42) It was during these same years that Giulio and Penni were involved in the task of decorating the Magdalen Chapel for a famous courtesan in SS. Trinita dei Monti.

Vasari does not name the courtesan who commissioned the Magdalen Chapel decorations. Pio Pecchiai, however, has suggested that she may have been Lucrezia Scanatoria, a woman whose name appears in surviving records from the convent and church of SS. Trinita. (43) It would appear that Lucrezia Scanatoria died sometime before February 14, 1522, which is given in the records as the date when the money she had left to SS. Trinita was used by the executors of her will to purchase a house in the Ponte district of Rome. (44) The house was subsequently known as La Maddalena, which Pecchiai suggests was because of its association through its patron with the frescoes in the Magdalen Chapel. Another explanation, however, may be that the house was in some way connected with the convent for converted prostitutes, known as the Convertite della Maddalena, established on May 19, 1520, by Leo X in the papal bull Salvator noster Jesus. (45) The convent was founded, financed, and operated by members of the Arciconfraternita del la Carita, a charitable sodality founded the previous year by Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, Leo X's cousin and the future Clement VII, and confirmed by Leo X with a papal bull on January 28, 1520. Significantly, the convent was guided spiritually by the Minimi of S. Francesco di Paola. (46) If the house known as La Maddalena can be associated with the convent of the convertite, then it would appear that the courtesan associated with the Magdalen Chapel had also left money to SS. Trinita dei Monti to be used for the purchase of a house, either for use by the newly founded convent or perhaps to serve as a refuge for converted prostitutes.

It is reasonable to assume that Lucrezia Scanatoria had repented her former life of sin before she died. It is highly unlikely that the church would have permitted a practicing courtesan, or one still practicing at the time of her death, to acquire and decorate a chapel. Such an endeavor had already drawn reproach from Leon Battista Alberti in the previous century, commenting on the inappropriateness, because of her unworthiness, of the famous courtesan Rhodope of Thrace building a sepulchre for herself. (47)

The chapel in SS. Trinita dei Monti was not the first in Rome to be decorated by a courtesan. The former courtesan Vannozza dei Cattanei, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia's mistress, had founded a chapel in S. Maria del Popolo in 1500 and was buried there following her death in 1518. (48) Similarly, in her will, dated February 19, 1512, the former courtesan and mistress of Cesare Borgia, Fiammetta, endowed a chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalen in the church of S. Agostino and gave instructions that she be buried there. (49) On her death in 1512, Imperia, the former courtesan and mistress of Agostino Chigi, was buried at Chigi's…