Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel may show woman with breast cancer: study

A calculated flaw in perfection.

New research suggests that Renaissance master artist Michelangelo Buonarroti had etched a woman battling breast cancer into the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.

An international team of experts identified “a woman with abnormal breast morphology” in the 500-year-old masterpiece using a process called iconodiagnosis, where art is studied through a medical lens to supplement understanding of health issues at the time.

Researchers have meticulously discovered signs of breast cancer in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Researchers meticulously investiated every bare breast included in the massive artwork for potential medical anomalies — but only one stood out.

The woman who wears a blue shawl — a sign she is married — is located on the right side of his fresco, “The Flood,” which depicts the Genesis passages surrounding Noah’s Ark on its ceiling. Michelangelo had spent four years from 1508 to 1512 mainly working on the legendary ceiling and walls as a whole.

Researcher Andreas G. Nerlich told ArtNet that the discovery “also gives us an insight into how a ‘diseased status’ may have been ‘used’ as a stylistic metaphor in ancient times.”

The left breast showed signs of ptosis or sagging due to breastfeeding while her right breast shows “a significantly retracted and deformed nipple,” per the new report — and this puckered effect is “consistent with breast carcinoma.”

Researchers compared the woman’s believed to be cancerous breast, shown in section 1C to several other works of Michelangelo. Michelangelo/Nerlich et al, The Breast 2024

“Some might argue that the woman depicted is quite young for a diagnosis of [breast cancer], given that today 85% of patients with this disease are over 50,” researchers wrote.

“However, applying modern data to the Renaissance period is not entirely accurate, as the average life expectancy then was around 35 years, which could have influenced the presentation and characteristics of cancer at that time.”

Researchers offered their theory on Michaelangelo’s intent.

“The representation of a probable breast cancer is linked to the concept of the impermanence of life and has the significance of punishment,” study authors mused, noting that the woman is also pointing to the ground as a gesture of mortality.

Researchers believe Michelangelo intently etched a woman with breast cancer into the Sistine Chapel. Corbis via Getty Images

If so, this discovery may show a pattern conducted by the legendary artist.

In 2000, a New England Journal of Medicine entry said his marble statue “Night” holds a “strong possibility that Michelangelo intentionally showed a woman with disease and that he may have known that the illness was cancer.”