In something resembling Where’s Waldo for a Renaissance masterpiece, an Italian researcher is confident she has located a depiction of Mary Magdalene in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. So confident, in fact, that Sara Penco has published a book on the subject.

The more than 300 figures packed into The Last Judgement (1536–41) make up a who’s who of Christianity. At the center stands Christ, with the Virgin Mother in tow, and around them turn John the Baptist, Saint Peter, and a posse of saints. Above, angels ferry the cross and the pillar through the heavens. Below, the dammed are beaten, flung, and trumpeted towards their torrid fates.

The identity of Mary Magdalene, the first person to encounter Jesus after his resurrection, however, has remained elusive. Some believed the controversial woman had been omitted altogether. Not Penco. The Rome-based art restorer and researcher sensed the redeemed sinner would have been too central a figure in Michelangelo’s Christian worldview to leave out.

Detail from Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement”. Photo: courtesy Sara Penco/Scripta Maneant.

Back in 2012, while reading texts on the Sistine Chapel, Penco became interested in how scholars had identified the fresco’s characters (regrettably, Michelangelo did not leave a key to the giant work). Among the crowded scene, one figure grabbed her attention: a boldly dressed woman stood behind a wooden cross on work’s the far-right hand side.

“I am firmly convinced that this is Mary Magdalene,” Penco said in Rome on December 10 at an event announcing the release of Mary Magdalene in Michelangelo’s Judgement. “The intimacy with the cross, the yellow dress and the blonde hair, but also the whole context in which Michelangelo places this figure to underscore her importance.”

Detail of Mary Magdalene Michelangelo’s in “The Last Judgement”. Photo: courtesy Sara Penco/Scripta Maneant.

Most straightforwardly, Penco argued, is Mary Magdalene’s proximity to Christ and his cross in the painting. She kisses the cross and Christ looks down paternalistically towards her. It’s a closeness mirrored in the Bible: Mary Magdalene stops near the cross during the Passion, stays by the tomb, witnesses Jesus after the resurrection, and announces the news to the Apostles.

Detail of Christ in Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement”. Photo: courtesy Sara Penco/Scripta Maneant.

Then, there’s the shock yellow of the woman’s dress. The color was evocative of treachery, sin, and madness, characteristics that were commonly associated with Mary Magdalene—though sometimes she was portrayed in red, the color of resurrection. The point is not to condemn the woman, but to remind the viewer of their own imperfections. Redemption, we might observe, remains possible for those who draw close to Christ. It’s an example that Michelangelo, who fretted about his own sinfulness, believes we must keep in mind. The kicker? Mary Magdalene’s gaze is directed not towards Christ, but us the viewer.

“She is a sinner, who is welcomed by Christ the cross-bearer and directed towards the path of salvation,” curator Asia Graziano writes in the book’s introduction. “In the chaotic and anguished vision Michelangelo stages in the Sistine Chapel, the detail of Mary Magdalene alongside Christ the Redeemer is the key to understanding a message that Michelangelo addresses to himself and passes on as a legacy to humanity.”

It’s the second close-reading of The Last Judgement to be released in as many months. In November, art historians and medical experts collaborated on a paper that identified lumps and a puckered nipple as indicative of a woman with breast cancer within Michelangelo’s painting.