Vita gazette – A new painting by Raffaello Sanzio has been discovered: Magdalene. It is a painting on poplar panel from 1504 measuring 46 cm by 34 cm, belonging to a private collection, which depicts a dark-haired Magdalene, with her hands gathered and an intense gaze: in fact, her features are those of Chiara Fancelli, Perugino’s wife. But Sgarbi disputes this.

The news was announced today by some scholars during the International Conference “Ideal beauty. Raffaello Sanzio’s vision of perfection”, which took place at the Teatro Angel dal Foco di Pergola in the province of Pesaro-Urbino, anticipating a study by the scientific journal “Open Science, Art and Science” entitled “Raphael’s Maddalena or when the student surpasses the Master”.

A painting has been attributed to Raffaello Sanzio, whose protagonist is a Magdalene who, in this specific case, had the appearance of Perugino’s wife – the painter’s teacher -namely Chiara Fancelli. Some scholars supported this during the international conference “Ideal Beauty – Raffaello Sanzio’s vision of perfection”, which was held in Pergola (Pesaro Urbino) and anticipates a study by the scientific journal “Open Science, Art and Science” which he will publish it with the title “Raphael’s Maddalena or when the pupil surpasses the Master”.

Among the experts who took part in the conference were Maria Cecilia Visentin, a pontifical professor specialising in religious iconography of the order of the Servants of Mary, Annalisa Di Maria, one of the leading international experts on Leonardo da Vinci and the Italian Renaissance, the professor emeritus of the Sorbonne Jean-Charles Pomerol and Andrea da Montefeltro, researcher and sculptor. For them, it is “a supreme artistic achievement of the Italian Renaissance”, a rediscovered masterpiece by Raphael.

The discovery, however, has already been contested by Vittorio Sgarbi: “There is no possibility that the painting advertised as Raphael, and announced in Pergola, an affectionate city, is by the master from Urbino. It is only a journalistic scoop since it is based on the knowledge of a few as it is a work in a private collection, with the owner’s legitimate aspiration to own a Raphael. The idea of ​​a Magdalene with the appearance of Perugino’s wife is already bizarre – Sgarbi continues – as is the legitimate propensity of some scholars to comment only on great names: Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli. Perugino is enough and moving forward. The work announced as Raphael – he says – is a version, perhaps autograph, of a prototype by Perugino preserved in Palazzo Pitti, of which another version is known in the Galleria Borghese”.