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Michelangelo's secret message in the Sistine Chapel - nest0r - 2010-06-05
Michelangelo's secret message in the Sistine Chapel: A juxtaposition of God and the human brain
"At the age of 17 he began dissecting corpses from the church graveyard. Between the years 1508 and 1512 he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti—known by his first name the world over as the singular artistic genius, sculptor and architect—was also an anatomist, a secret he concealed by destroying almost all of his anatomical sketches and notes. Now, 500 years after he drew them, his hidden anatomical illustrations have been found—painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, cleverly concealed from the eyes of Pope Julius II and countless religious worshipers, historians, and art lovers for centuries—inside the body of God... "
Original paper:
Concealed Neuroanatomy in Michelangelo's Separation of Light From Darkness in the Sistine Chapel
Abstract:
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) was a master anatomist as well as an artistic genius. He dissected cadavers numerous times and developed a profound understanding of human anatomy. From 1508 to 1512, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. His Sistine Chapel frescoes are considered one of the monumental achievements of Renaissance art. In the winter of 1511, Michelangelo entered the final stages of the Sistine Chapel project and painted 4 frescoes along the longitudinal apex of the vault, which completed a series of 9 central panels depicting scenes from the Book of Genesis. It is reported that Michelangelo concealed an image of the brain in the first of these last 4 panels, namely, the Creation of Adam. Here we present evidence that he concealed another neuronanatomic structure in the final panel of this series, the Separation of Light From Darkness, specifically a ventral view of the brainstem. The Separation of Light From Darkness is an important panel in the Sistine Chapel iconography because it depicts the beginning of Creation and is located directly above the altar. We propose that Michelangelo, a deeply religious man and an accomplished anatomist, intended to enhance the meaning of this iconographically critical panel and possibly document his anatomic accomplishments by concealing this sophisticated neuroanatomic rendering within the image of God.
Connection to Japan: Umm, Michelangelo was a Ninja Turtle. Yes.
Michelangelo's secret message in the Sistine Chapel - Nesetoru - 2010-06-06
Thanks for sharing. He is one of my favourite artists of all time.
Michelangelo's secret message in the Sistine Chapel - Kubelek - 2010-06-06
My anatomy professor shows these frescoes every year in a lecture finalizing neuroanatomy. I thought it was pretty neat.