Saints Peter, Martha, Mary Magdalen, and Leonard

Saints Peter, Martha, Mary Magdalen and Leonard or Four Saints is a 1514 oil on canvas altarpiece by Correggio, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He painted it for the church of Santa Maria della Misericordia and it shows Saint Peter, Saint Martha, Mary Magdalene and Leonard of Noblac.

Created in 1520 during the Renaissance period, this work belongs firmly within the religion & mythology tradition. Correggio worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.

Working in Oil on canvas at 87 1/4 x 63 3/4 in. (221.6 x 161.9 cm), Correggio constructs depth through value contrast rather than outline, letting figures emerge from darkness the way they would under candlelight or through a shuttered window.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. What looks like straightforward narrative is layered with typology: episodes chosen and staged to rhyme with older stories the original audience already knew.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York now holds the work, where conservators and historians continue to revisit its condition and attribution. Each generation of scholarship adds a layer to how Correggio's output from this period is understood.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”