Michelangelo secretly painted himself onto the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a scholar of Italian art has sensationally claimed.
Adriano Marinazzo, a curator of special projects at William & Mary college’s Muscarelle Museum of Art, believes the Renaissance artist depicted himself as God in “The Creation of Adam” — the famous fresco painting that adorns part of the chapel’s ceiling.
The artwork, which was painted sometime around 1508 to 1512, depicts God as an elderly man with a long gray beard, giving life to Adam by stretching out his right arm.
Marinazzo says he formed his new theory after conducting research on Michelangelo’s sketches, discovering what he asserts is a self-portrait that bears a striking similarity to the artist’s image of God.
“Michelangelo saw himself as the messiah of art, so it makes sense,” the scholar told the Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday.
According to Marinazzo, the self-portrait was sketched onto the side of a sonnet that Michelangelo wrote to a friend while he was painting the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.
The sketch shows the artist standing on his feet with his right arm stretched skyward.
Last year, Marinazzo had an “epiphany” and rotated the letter horizontally. He discovered that the self-portrait looked almost identical to the God that is seen on the ceiling of the chapel.
“He’s hidden himself in the ceiling,” the scholar asserted. “The face is idealized because Michelangelo was self-conscious about his smashed nose, but this is the closest he’s ever come to presenting himself as divine.”
Marinazzo first published his theory late last year in the peer-reviewed art journal Critica d’Arte.
Since that time, the scholar’s hypothesis has been creating a buzz in the art world.
Gary Radke, an Italian Renaissance expert at Syracuse University, told the Wall Street Journal he is “curious” about Marinazzo’s theory.
While he is not completely convinced that the sketch in the margin of Michelangelo’s sonnet is a self-portrait, he stated: “It raises questions about interpretation, and Adriano has seen something new.”
Additionally, Radke believes that it is not beyond the scope of possibility that the megalomaniacal Michelangelo may have depicted himself as divine.
“Michelangelo had an ego beyond belief,” he declared, “so all his art was autobiography to him. He was a modern artist in that way.”
Meanwhile, “The Creation of Adam” hit headlines mere weeks ago after a Florida principal was forced out of her job after parents complained about their young children viewing nude Adam in a Renaissance art lesson.
The painting, as well as Michelangelo’s famous sculpture David, was dubbed “pornographic” by one parent at the Tallahassee Classical School.
While the school is reportedly required to teach about Renaissance art in sixth grade, three parents spoke up about the lesson’s contents and claimed it upset their children.
A new rule passed last month by the school board mandated that parents were to be alerted two weeks before any curriculum is taught that is “potentially controversial.”
According to the outraged parents, they were not warned that Michelangelo’s artworks would be shown to the students.
