Washington, July 21: Could it be that Michelangelo hid an anatomy lesson in the Sistine Chapel frescoes painted by him? The answer is yes, if new research is to be believed.
The master painter-sculptor concealed an image of the human brainstem in a panel showing God at the beginning of Creation, according to an article in the May issue of Neurosurgery, the official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.
“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,” write medical illustrator, DR Ian Suk and neurosurgeon, Dr Rafael Tamargo, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore.
The “concealed neuroanatomy” is found in the painting Separation of Light from Darkness, one of a series of nine Sistine Chapel panels showing scenes from the Book of Genesis. According to Dr Suk and Dr Tamargo, “anatomically correct ventral [front] depiction” of the brainstem can be seen in God’s neck.