Cristo e l’Adultera, 1548-'50 - Loreto
Christ and the Adulteress, 1548-'50
Museo Pontificio Santa Casa, Loreto

The adulteress is in the foreground, on the left of the painting, surrounded by a crowd of characters cut to two-thirds of the figure, on a dark background, depicted in their decomposed gesture. There are those who count the number of sins, who allude to the sky and its laws, only one, older than the others, asking for silence. At the center, the solemn and stately figure of Christ, who, with his right arm raised, seems to protect the woman, while his left hand expresses the inverted sign of blessing, with fingers pointing down. The various tampering suffered compromised the quality of the original painting, which is considered a later replica of the eponymous subject housed in the Louvre.