Michelangelo ‘painted a woman’s breast cancer’ in the Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo may have depicted a woman suffering from breast cancer in a famous fresco of a biblical flood on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, researchers have suggested.

The naked woman, who is wearing only a blue headscarf (indicating she is married), was brought to life by the Renaissance figure in his iconic fresco, known as The Flood, which was painted between 1508 and 1512.

She is shown clutching her ribs just below her breast as men and women with children attempt to flee God’s flooding of the Earth in a chaotic depiction from the Bible’s book of Genesis.

A close up of the right breast of the woman in the blue headscarf shows nipple retraction and fissural defects of the upper and medial areola (1C). The one and two stars show two bulging lumps. On the right, the healthy breasts of a young (top) and an older woman (bottom). 1D is a pre-restoration photo.Credit: The Breast/CC

A study published in the medical journal The Breast found the woman’s breast and the area around her right armpit were disfigured in a way consistent with symptoms of the disease.

Dr Raffaella Bianucci, an expert in iconodiagnosis – the medical analysis of artworks to identify clinical signs indicating medical disorders and diseases – at the University of Paris-Saclay, said the woman appears to have a retracted nipple and areola on her right breast surrounded by lumps and indentations.

Researchers also noted a bulge beneath the woman’s armpit, which may portray enlarged lymph nodes.

The Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.Credit:

“The contrast with the right breast is evident. Although slightly elevated by her right arm, there is a significantly retracted and deformed nipple,” the researchers said.

They also believe the potential representation of breast cancer may tie in with the Florentine’s attempts to portray the inevitability of death.

Bianucci said the finding was particularly significant because it may confirm the incidence of cancer as far back as 1508, when Michelangelo painted the fresco – a mural painting technique that daubs water-based paint into wet plaster.

She said the depiction also reflected the scientific breakthroughs in identifying disease in that era. “The Renaissance was not only a period of artistic creativity, it marked the dawn of surgery,” Bianucci said.

Michelangelo was well known for his studies of the human body and had examined and dissected cadavers from a young age.

Previous groundbreaking research showed he also hid anatomical sketches in the robes and faces of his figures in the Sistine Chapel in an attack on the church’s disdain for science.

The woman at the centre of the latest research was shown in one of nine scenes from the book of Genesis that stretch across the vast ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, located in the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.

“Each woman’s naked breast was carefully examined by our team in order to identify the presence of possible pathological conditions,” Bianucci said.

“The case of The Flood is particularly interesting, especially because it allows multiple levels of interpretation.”

The researchers said Michelangelo might have “had knowledge of healthy breasts of different sizes and morphologies”, and presenting “pathological breast conditions” with a theological meaning may have been his intention.

Michelangelo painted more than 300 figures across the celebrated ceiling, which attracts more than 5 million visitors a year.

Experts have long been fascinated by the accuracy of the artist’s anatomical portrayal as well as his theological interpretation of biblical events.

Researchers have previously identified physical signs of breast cancer, including swelling and skin retraction, in the breast of a woman Michelangelo depicted in his image of Night above the Tomb of Giuliano de Medici in Florence.

The Telegraph, London

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