Around 1480 -1500 · preaching, penance and last breath

Four works follow Madeleine from listening to Christ to penitent solitude, then to her last moments, before placing her back in the great Trinity with John the Baptist.

Mary Magdalene appears in Botticelli in several forms which are not reduced to the ointment vase alone. Saint Mary Magdalene listening to Christ's preaching shows her in a community gathered by word; its orientation and gesture make attention visible. The Scenes from the Life of Mary Magdalene bring together several episodes of predella in a modern copy according to Botticelli: their status as a copy must be distinguished from that of an original, but they preserve the narrative logic of a cycle today dispersed or transformed. The Last Moments of Saint Mary Magdalene condense the transition from penance to death in a small space of devotion. There Trinity with Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint John the Baptist finally broadens her presence: the saint, marked by asceticism, stands near the precursor, Raphael and Tobit under a Trinitarian vision. Line, hair and gestures connect story and contemplation. The selection "Mary Magdalene at Sandro Botticelli" notably compares Saint Mary Magdalene listening to the preaching of Christ and Scenes from the life of Mary Magdalene: modern copy after Sandro Botticelli (four panels of predella). His reading favors space.

Madeleine changes role depending on the scale: listener in a crowd, penitent in solitude, dying in the predella and intercessor in the altarpiece.