Anatomy lesson hidden in Sistine Chapel, doctors saySAO PAULO, Brazil - Two Brazilian doctors and amateur art lovers believe they have uncovered a secret lesson on human anatomy hidden by Renaissance artist Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.
Completed nearly 500 years ago, the brightly colored frescoes painted on the Vatican’s famous sanctuary are considered some of the world’s greatest works of art. They depict biblical scenes such as the “Creation of Adam” in which God reaches out to touch Adam’s finger.
But Gilson Barreto and Marcelo de Oliveira believe Michelangelo also scattered his detailed knowledge of internal anatomy across 34 of the ceiling’s 38 panels. The way they see it, a tree trunk is not just a tree trunk, but also a bronchial tube. And a green bag in one scene is really a human heart.
They say the key to finding the numerous organs, bones and other human insides is to crack a “code” they believe was left behind by the Florentine artist. Essentially, it is a set of sometimes subtle, sometimes overt clues, such as the way a figure is pointing.
“Why wasn’t this ever seen before? First, because very few people have the sufficient anatomical knowledge to see these pieces like this. I do because that’s my profession,” said Barreto, who is a surgeon in the Brazilian city of Campinas.
Past discoveries
Barreto and his friend Oliveira are not the first physicians to see depictions of human organs in the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican church where popes are elected.
Fifteen years ago, U.S. doctor Frank Meshberger pointed out that the figure of God and his surrounding angels in the “Creation of Adam” panel resembled a cross-section of the human brain.
He believes Michelangelo was equating God’s gift of a soul for Adam with the divine gift of intelligence for mankind.
Packing up his desk as he prepared to move houses, Barreto came across Meshberger’s theory.
“I said to myself, ‘If there’s a brain, he surely didn’t just paint a brain. There have to be others,”’ Barreto said.
Thumbing through books and pictures of the chapel all night, Barreto said he found five or six other anatomical depictions. He presented his findings to Oliveira the next day, and the two probed further for three months.
The project culminated with their book “The Secret Art of Michelangelo,” which was published in Brazil last year and has so far sold 50,000 copies, a very high number for Brazil. It is being negotiated for U.S., Spanish and Portuguese publication.
As part of their research, they discovered another U.S. doctor, Garabed Eknoyan, had found the figure of a kidney in the panel entitled “Separation of the Earth from the Waters.”
Cracking the code
Eventually Barreto and Oliveira came to believe Michelangelo had left behind coded messages in each panel to help viewers find the hidden body part.
Some clues are thematic, such as “Creation of Adam” or “Creation of Eve,” in which a tree trunk looks like a bronchial tube and God’s purple robe is a representation of a lung when viewed from the side. One could say God is imparting the “breath of life” into Eve in the scene, Barreto said.
Another part of the code is to look at what figures surrounding the main character of each panel are doing.
