Did Michelangelo paint a young adult woman with breast cancer in “The Flood” (Sistine Chapel, Rome)?

Abstract

The Flood is the first pictorial scene that Michelangelo Buonarroti painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. On the right side of the fresco a woman with abnormal breast morphology is presented and the nature of her disease is considered using the Guidelines for Iconodiagnosis. A team of experts covering art history, art expertise, medicine, genetics, and pathology undertook the process and concluded that the pathology shown is probably breast cancer, most likely linked to the symbolic significance of an inevitable death as expressed in the Book of Genesis.

Keywords

• Iconodiagnosis
• Breast disease
• Michelangelo
• Sistine Chapel
• Bible
• Symbolism