Scientists believe they have discovered a hidden code in Renaissance artist Michelangelo’s famous fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and if they are correct, it could change how the painter is viewed forever.

It is arguably one of the greatest works of art in the world depicting the doctrine of the Catholic Church from the creation of man to the arrival of Christ. But the enormous and beautiful fresco sweeping across the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel may hold a feminist secret that went unnoticed by the strict religious authorities who commissioned it.

Michelangelo, the Renaissance master artist who spent four years creating the fresco, may have hidden symbols of the female anatomy in the great painting. This flouted Catholic decrees at the time, which held the human body was a divine mystery and forbade representations of anatomy lest it lead to a ‘return to pagan idolatry’.

Researchers claim to have found shapes concealed within the huge painting which bear more than a passing resemblance to the female sexual organs. These include eight rams skulls which are positioned at regular points around the ceiling, separating the nude figures of a male and female pair. They appear to resemble the female reproductive organs – the uterus, ovaries and Fallopian tubes – according to the researchers.

The researchers have also calculated that Eve’s arms form the very centre of the ceiling. They say Michelangelo positioned the arm of Eve in the shape of a downward-pointing triangle. This they claim resembles the chalice or vessel, which is a notorious pagan symbol for fertility and the female body. They argue eight other depictions of either this female pagan symbol or the symbol for the masculine form – an upward pointing triangle – appear in the painting.

Dr Deivis de Campos, a researcher in human anatomy at the Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre in Brazil, and his colleagues said Michelangelo may have done this as a way of snubbing his nose at his patron the Pope and the Catholic Church.

It is known that Michelangelo had been reluctant to take on the commission for the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, particularly as he considered painting to be a lower form of art.

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