Did they find it using a Magda glass?
Researchers have claimed that Christ’s disciple, Mary Magdalene, may have been hidden in plain sight in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel masterpiece for almost 500 years.
The identity of the sinister figure was revealed by Italian art restorer Sara Penco, who is publishing the biblical bombshell in her book, Mary Magdalene in Michelangelo’s Judgment, this week.
“I am absolutely convinced that this is Mary Magdalene,” Penco, who specializes in Renaissance and Baroque art, said at an art conference in Rome on Tuesday.
She was referring to a figure in the right corner of “The Last Judgment,” a legendary depiction of Christ’s second coming and God’s final judgment, painted in the Sistine Chapel — located in today’s Vatican — between 1537 and 1531 .
She is a blonde woman who is seen kissing a cross drawn by a naked man who is believed to be Jesus Christ.
While well-camouflaged among the 300 other figures in the magnum opus, the legendary penitent was flagged by Penco for her “intimacy with the cross, yellow dress and blonde hair” and her prominent placement in the painting.
“The cross bearer is looking in the direction of Mary Magdalene, it is as if he is removed from the composition looking towards the woman who is peacefully holding the wood and the cross,” she said.
The Renaissance master had a vast knowledge of the biblical canon and would not have left such an integral figure out of a divine scene, argued Penco, who thought the altarpiece screamed “that something was missing.”
“Michelangelo was an expert painter, he was very cultured, he was someone who knew very well the dynamics of the church, he knew the gospels and he could not have forgotten that,” stated Penco.
If she did indeed fill in this missing piece of the puzzle, she may have closed the book on a mystery that has eluded researchers for centuries.
Her historical theory is also supported by Professor Yvonne Dohna Schlobitten of the Gregorian University in Rome.
She wrote in Penco’s book that “iconography and theology are linked in Penco’s reasoning to form a vision: the woman kissing the cross has an important role, even if she appears hidden at the edges of the image.”
Magdalena is recognized as one of the most prominent apostles of Christ, present both for his crucifixion and resurrection and as the one who spread the “good news” of the latter, through the gospel.
Wrongly portrayed as a prostitute throughout history, the disciple is seen as a poster child for repentant sinners.
This isn’t the only suspected Easter egg hidden inside a Michelangelo masterpiece.
New research suggests that Michelangelo carved a woman battling breast cancer into one of the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes.
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Image Source : nypost.com