Pietà with Saint Francis and Saint Mary Magdalene

[1] It is thought to be the work referred to in a letter by Giovanni Battista Agucchi reproduced in Carlo Cesare Malvasia's Felsina Pittrice – other references in Malvasia date the letter to 1607.

[3] A second undated letter by Agucchi explicitly refers to the Pietà in the Mattei chapel, whilst another passage in Felsina confirms that that Pietà was one of Carracci's last works but states that others had dated the work much earlier.

Tietze, Mahon, Cavalli and Posner have all argued that 1607 is much too late a date for the work.

[2] A preparatory drawing by Annibale (now in the Jenisch Museum in Vevey) with Joseph but without Francis was thought to confirm this theory until a 1994 X-ray of the Louvre work showed the absence of pentimenti.

[2] Another theory suggests that the area now occupied by Francis was blank when the copy was made, with Domenichino adding a figure of Joseph (either from his own invention or from rejected preparatory drawings by Annibale) and with Annibale later filling the blank with a figure of Francis[5]