Subtle Detail Spotted On Michelangelo’s Shoes May Alter His Reputation

The experts in question came from Italy’s Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology, and Bioarchaeology Research Center, and they had quite an unusual focus for their study. Basically, they put an awful lot of effort into examining shoes purported to have once belonged to Michelangelo. For those of us not involved in the research, that might seem a little strange.

The thing is, though, in the hands of experts who know what they’re doing, shoes can be very revealing. A lot of information can be extracted from a person’s footwear – and not just in relation to their style preferences. With a little care and effort, more tangible characteristics can also be deduced.

Most of us have been aware of Michelangelo since we were kids. His incredible legacy has endured across the centuries since his death, meaning that people today have at least their own vague idea of who the man was. This recently published study, though, might just challenge our preconceptions about him.

A man of Michelangelo’s stature tends to stick in our minds, even taking on a semi-mythical quality. But this research has shown us the human side of the now-legendary figure. Despite all his talent and the sheer power of his work, he probably wasn’t quite so immense in every department.

Michelangelo arrived into the world in 1475, born in a place called Caprese in Italy. His dad worked as a magistrate in this small community, but the family would soon be on the move. While Michelangelo was still very young, they upped sticks and relocated to the city of Florence.

Tragedy struck Michelangelo’s life early: his mom suffered from poor health, and by the time the boy was just six, she’d passed away. This disruption to his life meant the young Michelangelo spent a lot of time being looked after by another family. These carers introduced him to stone-cutting, which obviously served him well in later life!

Michelangelo developed a clear interest in the arts from a young age. Less keen to focus on other aspects of his education, the boy would instead observe artists working in local churches. He’d hone his own skills by attempting to replicate their work with his own sketches. Eventually, he became acquainted with the established artist Domenico Ghirlandaio.

It had become evident to Michelangelo’s dad that his creatively minded son wasn’t going to follow him into the world of finance. So, when the boy was 13, he allowed him to become Ghirlandaio’s apprentice. It was under this artist’s tutelage, then, that Michelangelo learned the fresco method of painting murals.

Michelangelo’s immense talent was quickly evident to Ghirlandaio, who recommended that he properly learn how to carve art from stone. The teenager was sent to the palace of Lorenzo de’ Medici, who ruled over Florence at the time. Here, in the grounds of this most opulent and grandiose of settings, the budding artist was taught about classical sculpture.

Naturally, being in this most elite of environments proved useful for making contacts. During this period, Michelangelo was taught by a prominent sculptor by the name of Bertoldo di Giovanni, but that wasn’t all. He met distinguished and intellectually minded individuals from a variety of different disciplines around this time, including academics, scientists and poets.

As a true Renaissance man, Michelangelo had many strings to his bow. His interests were broad, and they often fed into each other. For instance, he developed a fascination for human biology and was even permitted by the Catholic Church to conduct dissections on human remains. This experience, though morbid, undoubtedly had a direct impact on his art.

One of the defining characteristics of Michelangelo’s style is the vivid and realistic detail of his human subjects. The manner in which he portrays musculature, for example, is particularly impressive. This can even be seen in his early works as a teenager, such as Battle of the Centaurs and Madonna Seated on a Step.

There were turbulent times in Florence in 1492 in the wake of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s passing, so Michelangelo moved to Bologna. He carried on with his education here for a time, before returning to Florence when things were calmer. Now, though, he was working as a professional sculptor, after years of learning his craft.

After spending a few more years in Florence, Michelangelo then relocated to Rome. Here, he was commissioned by a prominent cardinal to create a sculpture depicting a deceased Jesus spread out on his mother Mary’s lap. The finished work would come to be known as the Pietà.

Astonishingly, the Pietà took the 25-year-old artist less than a year to complete. Even at that time, people apparently recognized the genius of Michelangelo’s work. And, of course, that remains the case today. The sculpture has since been rehoused several times, but it can be seen today in Vatican City, a self-contained city state located within the physical confines of Rome, Italy.

The Pietà has a special distinction, in that it’s the only Michelangelo piece to have his name etched into it. The story goes that he decided to do this when he overheard someone claiming that another artist was responsible. Annoyed by the thought of someone else receiving credit for his efforts, he carved out his name on Mary’s chest.

For three years from 1501 Michelangelo was working on what would become one of his masterpieces. The statue of David had been started by two previous sculptors, but both had found the task beyond them. Michelangelo then took over and turned the block of marble into what has since become one of the most well-known sculptures in the world.

The statue of David is the work of a master sculptor, but Michelangelo’s next masterpiece would demonstrate his genius as a painter, too. He was requested by the Pope to decorate the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, a challenge he accepted. This project clearly captured Michelangelo’s imagination and his vision became increasingly expansive as he progressed.

Michelangelo soon dismissed every one of his helpers, being unhappy with the quality of work they were producing. He obsessively completed the project alone, spending an incredible amount of time lying on his back and painting the ceiling. The result, which he unveiled on Halloween in 1512, remains one of the greatest examples of Renaissance art.

Working on the Sistine Chapel had taken a lot out of Michelangelo physically, and his interests soon turned elsewhere. He carried on painting and sculpting, of course, but his primary interest became architecture. In this field, as with all the others, he demonstrated his genius. He designed several incredible buildings, but his most notable contribution to the field probably came during his tenure as head architect of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

Michelangelo made it to a ripe old age, passing away a few weeks before he turned 89. Leaving behind an incredible legacy and an immense body of work, he was immediately heralded as a master artist. And this reputation hasn’t at all diminished in the centuries that have followed his death in 1564.

We’re lucky to have so many of Michelangelo’s works still on show today, as they allow us to marvel at his genius. We all know about his one-of-a-kind abilities as an artist, but what about his general personality? What about his physical characteristics? For certain admirers of his work, these are pressing questions.

In terms of his personality, first of all, it seems that Michelangelo had been something of a firebrand. It’s said that he had a sharp temper, which put a strain on his personal and professional relationships. His obsessive perfectionism apparently made him a hard taskmaster.

Michelangelo was also known to slip into periods of depression, which can be seen in his own writings. For example, he noted at one time, “I am here in great distress and with great physical strain, and have no friends of any kind, nor do I want them; and I do not have enough time to eat as much as I need; my joy and my sorrow/my repose are these discomforts.”

In terms of Michelangelo’s physical characteristics, we also know a thing or two. It’s understood, for example, that he was punched hard in the face in his earlier years, which permanently deformed his nose. In later life he experienced quite a lot of pain, too, especially after working on the Sistine Chapel.

Questions related to Michelangelo’s physicality have continued to interest people, even all these centuries after his death. And in September 2021 a new study was published in scientific journal Anthropologie which represents something of a breakthrough in this respect. With the emergence of this report, we now almost certainly know something new about the great artist.

As previously mentioned, the study was slightly odd, centered as it was upon the careful analysis of three shoes recovered from Michelangelo’s household following his passing. Two of these were matching, while the third was on its own. Its counterpart had been robbed back in 1873, so the experts just had to make do with the one.

This was a novel study, as no other had attempted to use Michelangelo’s clothing in this way. But the researchers felt that by measuring the shoes, they could give a fair estimate of how tall he’d been. So, what did they find? Well, it turns out that this man with a colossal legacy was probably quite short in terms of physical stature.

The experts estimate that Michelangelo was no taller than 5’2”, which is quite a bit shorter than most European men today. That might seem to contradict the idea that many of us have of the great man. In terms of his art, after all, he was a giant.

While this revelation might initially seem quite surprising, the truth is that it’s not really so strange. Michelangelo, as a matter of fact, wasn’t a particularly short man by the standards of his era. You see, the average height of Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries was shorter than it is today.

Giorgio Vasari was an artist and writer from Michelangelo’s own time who once recorded a description of the great man. Vasari noted, “He was of mediocre stature, broad in the shoulders, but well proportioned to the rest of his body.” This usage of the word “mediocre” wasn’t as insulting as it might seem, as Vasari used the term in its older context to mean “average.”

So, it really wouldn’t be that unrealistic to suggest Michelangelo was only a little over 5 feet tall. But despite the seeming evidence for that, it’s still not 100 percent certain to have been the case. Even though the researchers may have got all their calculations correct, there’s still a potential problem.

The three shoes that were studied are all equivalent in size, which means they likely belonged to the same individual. But there’s no guarantee that this person was actually Michelangelo. These shoes have always been linked to the artist, but it’s possible someone else in his home used to wear them.

So we can’t be totally sure that this research refers to the height of Michelangelo. Still, though, there’s a strong chance these shoes were his and that he really did stand at 5’2” tall. And that makes this study special, as details like this are really difficult to obtain.

In order to figure out really specific details about Michelangelo’s physical characteristics, researchers would have to do something quite drastic. Basically, his skeleton would need to be disinterred and then subjected to scientific scrutiny. But that, frankly, would be a really grizzly and downright morally questionable thing to do.

If we rule out the exhumation of Michelangelo’s remains – which we should – then that leaves studies like this one involving his shoes. In this context, we can say that this method of research is actually a far less problematic way to do things. Even if it happens to be a little weird.

Following on from the shoe study, researchers have more plans to learn about Michelangelo by studying fingerprints thought to be his. A number of his works bear fingerprints, with one only recently discovered on a waxwork called The Slave. If proven to be his, such fingerprints could reveal more about the artist.

All of this might seem like a huge amount of effort to learn about one man. But if nothing else, it just shows what an influence Michelangelo has had on art and culture. He was such an important figure that there are people out there willing to dedicate their lives to painstakingly studying his shoes and fingerprints.

Michelangelo is remembered alongside figures such as Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci as a true master of the Renaissance. The power and lasting influence of his work has undoubtedly made him a towering figure of the art world. It’s likely, though, that his imposing genius wasn’t quite reflected in his more modest height.