Maddalena Penitente’ is a series of studies on the character of Mary Magdalene. Saint and prostitute at the same time, her figure embodies a complex duality somewhere between the sacred and the profane. Her body is tortured by the life she has lived, but her soul is strong enough to make her stand out among the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. In his Gospel, Luke tells the story of the woman who, prostrate before Christ, dries his feet with her long hair; the same beautiful hair that, according to Bernardine of Siena, would have aroused such impure thoughts in any man that he would have burnt in Hell. My Magdalene is a holy harlot beyond human femininity: torn to pieces and corrupted by bruises but still capable of wrapping her long hair around her beloved. It is precisely the hair that thus becomes the key to understanding an icon: slowly taking over the rest of the body, they transform the woman into a hybrid, almost an earthly siren.