In 1672, Giovanni Pietro Bellori, a prominent biographer of artists of the 17th century, commenting about St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta, wrote: “Per la chiesa medesima di San Giovanni, entro la cappella della natione Italiana dipinse due mezze figure sopra due porte: la Madalena, e san Girolamo che scrive.”

However, Keith Sciberras and David Stone contend that Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio did not paint a Magdalen in Malta. The researchers point out that the biographer never came to the island, probably trusting his Maltese informer, who would have seen the picture in the chapel of Italian Langue at the co-cathedral, erroneously ascribing it to Caravaggio.

This painting is a companion piece to the copy of St Jerome Writing by Caravaggio (with which it shares Ippolito Malaspina’s coat of arms) which has replaced the original, shifted to the oratory of the same church, in front of the monumental The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.

The Magdalen of Valletta has many similarities with Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Antonio Allegri da Correggio, painted in Parma in 1527: the woman’s posture, joined hands, intense expressiveness of the tormented face, and the tomb which is modelled on the compositive structure of Christ’s legs.

During a journey from the Po Valley to Rome, Caravaggio probably passed through the city, where he saw Correggio’s masterpiece. Jacob Hess attributed the Magdalen at the Tomb at the co-cathedral to Lionello Spada, a Bolognese artist who spent much of his life in Parma.

In his article ‘A mysterious Mary Magdalen’ (The Sunday Times, December 4, 2005); Giovanni Bonello says that, on December 22, 1796, Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen visited the co-cathedral, where he saw a St Jerome Writing and a Magdalen in front of it, and was dumbfounded, as carefully noted by his diarist Peder Pavels. The northern artist ascribed the two paintings to Caraccio, a nickname that according to Bonello could have referred to Caravaggio, Carracci or Correggio.

Achille Ferris mentions three valuable paintings adorning the chapel of Italian Langue: Mystic Marriage of St Catherine by Mattia Preti, a St Jerome and a Magdalen “di buona mano”.

A traveller of 17th century, Carlo Castone della Torre di Rezzonico (1742-1796), a man of letters, a writer and a poet, who nourished particular interest in works of art and antiques, visited the chapel, ascribing the Magdalen to Sisto Badalocchio, a Parmese artist known as Sisto Rosa (1581-1647), who helped to spread the influence of baroque painting of northern Italy in Malta. He was trained in the circle of Carracci, in particular Agostino’s, and he worked several times with Giovanni Lanfranco.

Pietro D’Asaro, Magdalen in Ecstasy, about 1609, Palermo, Art Gallery of Abatellis Palace. Right: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Magdalen in Ecstasy, private European collection.

Bonello follows the attribution by Castone, considering the pathetic scene, the softness in the outlines and chromatic range, distinctive features of the artist. Moreover, he reveals that during the restoration of the chapel, after the painting was cleaned, differences of sharpness were found in various parts of the canvas, indicating that two side wings had been added to a previous central part.

The painting in Valletta is very similar in compositive syntax to Magdalen at the Tomb, attributed in 1976 by Federico Zeri to Scipione Pulzone, today owned by the philanthropic Fondazione Cariplo. The artist from Gaeta painted this some years before the other Magdalen (1574) at the basilica of St John in Lateran, Rome, which in turn was modelled on an eponymous work by Titian. The painting at the foundation is modelled on Correggio’s archetype, the diffusion of which was promoted in the central Italian region of Latium by an engraving by Flemish Adrien Collaert (1560-1618).

Keith Sciberras and David Stone contend that Caravaggio did not paint a Magdalen in Malta

A Sicilian version of the same subject exists in the gallery of Abatellis Palace, Palermo, which calls to mind the Magdalen at the co-cathedral. The work comes from the sacristy of the church adjoining the Capuchin convent of Castronuovo, as indicated on a label at the back of the canvas. It is small in size (22cm by 15.5cm) signed by Pietro D’Asaro (1579-1647), known as ‘Monocle’ or ‘one-eyed man from Racalmuto’, because he had lost his sight from an eye.

The work shows the influence of Caravaggio, who the Sicilian painter had met as a result of his visits to the Capuchins, for whom Merisi made several paintings in Messina. Besides, the artist from Agrigento might also have finished the work for the Capuchins of Castronuovo in 1609, during the construction of the church of Our Lady of the Bagnara, adjoining the new monastery of the Order completed in 1625.

Giovanni Giulio Cassarino, Penitent Magdalen, about 1625, Rabat, Wignacourt Museum.

The Capuchins arrived in the small town in the heart of the Sicani mountains in 1533 and they settled in the church of St Nicholas of Bari, near which they erected a monastery, which was replaced by a new structure. It is probable that the small painting was realised around the time when the new church was built.

Considering, however, the lack of markings on the work, it is also possible that it was painted for a private individual, who later gave it to the small sacred building inside the structure under construction. The work shows the painter’s interest in Caravaggio’s dramatic use of light, which was certainly the most important novelty introduced at that time in Sicily, though the final result much to be desired.

Maurizio Calvesi described it as a “versione povera e popolare, di umile impronta poetica”. In fact, the woman looks awkward and ungraceful, and the use of shading does not appear appropriate; the rays shining down from the upper right are of basic workmanship, the central ray bears the inscription ‘Amore Langueo’, taken from the Song of Songs, where the bride asks her spouse to be kissed, as a symbol of divine forgiveness, obtained by sinners through the sacrifice of Christ.

A Sicilian version of the same subject exists in the gallery of Abatellis Palace, Palermo, which calls to mind the Magdalen at the co-cathedral

Another version of this subject, painted by the same artist, is found in the Pinacoteca Comunale in Reggio Calabria. It is interesting to note that this Calabrian version is very similar, almost a copy, of the Magdalen at the co-cathedral, above all in the use of the same colours in woman’s clothes. This suggests that ‘Monocle’ may have possibly visited Malta. Here, Mary from Magdala is immortalised afflicted with pain, while in the Sicilian version she is caught at the moment of the ecstasy.

Antonio Allegri da Correggio, Lamentation over the Dead Christ, about 1524, Parma, National Gallery. Right: Pietro D’Asaro, Magdalen, Reggio Calabria, Pinacoteca Comunale.

Hess had said that the saint’s posture in the St Sebastian Tended by Irene, signed by Cassarino, at St John’s Co-cathedral, was taken from lost Magdalen mentioned by Bellori. This was followed by John Cauchi, who decided to go back to the original through the several copies spread all over Europe: at Fine Arts Museum, Marseille, painted by Louis Finson in 1612, and another in a private collection, Saint Rémi de Provence, signed by the same artist and dated 1613; in a private collection in Barcelona, dated 1620, signed by Rembrandt’s brother in law Wybrandt de Geest; at the Fine Arts Museum, Bordeaux, by an anonymous artist in the first half of 17th century; two anonymous versions in Maltese private collections, one of which bears the enigmatic inscription ‘G NF DC’, probably alluding to a circle of Maltese Knights; at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg; in a private collection in Rome, popularly known as Klein Magdalen, which many critics consider an autograph by Caravaggio.

Another version exists, restored around 1940 by Antonio Mata when it was in a private collection in Palermo, a photo of which was given to Roberto Longhi, who published it in the Milanese exhibition in 1951. However, the painting, considered an autograph by Caravaggio, has never come to light.

Giovanni Giulio Cassarino, St Sebastian Tended by Irene, 1624, Valletta, St John’s Co-Cathedral. Right: Louis Finson, Magdalen in Ecstasy, 1612, Marseille, Fine Arts Museum.

In 1977, Cauchi ascribed to Cassarino the Penitent Magdalen at Wignacourt Museum, Rabat, saying it was a copy of the lost original by Caravaggio. Sciberras puts forward the proposal that the Rabat painting was instead a copy of a Neapolitan work, painted by an anonymous artist. The work rather links up to St Jerome, in view of the table and cross, and to the Raising of Lazarus at Messina, both by Merisi, in view of the woman’s posture, which is similar to that of Marta, sister of Lazarus, to his right, as Cauchi noted.

Mina Gregori, a pupil of Roberto Longhi and a renowned scholar of Caravaggio, claims to have discovered an autograph Magdalen in Ecstasy by Merisi in a private European collection, considering it the painting that the artist brought along with him in the felucca bound for Porto Ercole, shortly before his death.

The researcher ascribed the work to the master on the basis of stylistic features, but not only; the painting, in fact, bears on the back a label, written in 17th-century handwriting, which reads: “Madalena reversa di Caravaggio a Chiaia ivi da servare pel beneficio del Cardinale Borghese di Roma.”

The work was, in fact, to due be presented to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, patron of Caravaggio, in gratitude for mercy granted after years of rebelliousness following the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni.

The discovery means one needs to re-examine the attribution to Caravaggio of the Klein Magdalena in Rome, as suggested by John Gash in 2003 and recognised by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage.

The painting found by Gregori was delivered by Costanza Colonna, who was always bound to the artist, after it arrived in Naples, where the felucca sailed to on the way back from Porto Ercole, without the painter, who had already died. Here the work was probably seen by Louis Finson, who, in 1612, painted the copy that today is in Marseille.

This confirms Sciberras and Stone’s statements, according to whom Caravaggio never painted a Magdalen in Malta, also considering the two letters found by Vincenzo Pacelli at Vatican Archives, in which it is written that Diodato Gentile, bishop of Caserta, who was very close to Cardinal Borghese, informed the latter of the painter’s death and that on board the felucca were “doi san Giovanni e la Maddalena”.