Did Michelangelo Hide Feminist Symbols in the Sistine Chapel?

ARTNET NEWS
By Alyssa Buffenstein
Detail of the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo. Photo by Fotopress/Getty Images.
VATICAN CITY---While it’s estimated that only around 30 women live in Vatican City, it’s possible that the ecclesiastical state’s most popular art attraction is filled with hidden blasphemies and feminist symbols. A team of Human Anatomy researchers at the Federal University of Health Sciences in Porto Alegre, Brazil, made the claims, as the Daily Mail reports. They forward the theory that Michelangelo often hid “sexual innuendos and rude insults to patrons without them being aware,” and that the male-dominated Catholic church conflicted with the artist’s Greco-Roman-influenced, feminist beliefs. [link]

The interior of the Sistine Chapel. Photo: PIERPAOLO CITO/AFP/Getty Images.