A rich and readable account of the icon’s complex development from faithful apostle and seductress to feminist icon.

Mary Magdalene’s many complex roles in Christian history have fascinated us for two thousand years. This volume, illustrated in full color, reveals how images and presentations often offered visions of Mary that were at odds with one another.

Beginning with the earliest sources, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona uncovers the real Mary Magdalene and reveals what she meant in her own time. Next, she embarks on a fast-paced tour of Magdalene’s depictions in great works of art, plumbing through forgotten masterpieces and contemporary visual culture. Considering relics, statuary, paintings, sculptures, and recent works for stage and screen, readers discover how Mary Magdalene has been seen across time as a witness, a sinner, a penitent, a contemplative, a preacher, and a patroness.

Above all her complex roles, Mary Magdalene has emerged as a powerful feminist icon, with a visual history as rich and varied as the roles she has fulfilled in faith and worship for two millennia.

Diane Apostolos-Cappadona is professor emerita of religious art and cultural history and the former Haub Director of Catholic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.