Rheumatol Int (2017) 37:1937–1941 Rheumatology DOI 10.1007/s00296-017-3824-0 INTERNATIONAL

ART AND RMDS

Hand deformities in Filippino Lippi’s Magrini Altarpiece (c. 1482)

G. M. Weisz1,2 · W. R. Albury1

Received: 6 August 2017 / Accepted: 20 September 2017 / Published online: 30 September 2017 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017

Abstract Examination of the four saints in Filippino Introduction Lippi’s Magrini Altarpiece (c. 1482) shows that they all have hand deformities of various kinds. The two saints on Filippino Lippi (1457–1504), illegitimate son of the famous the viewer’s left, St Rocco and St Sebastian, are portrayed Florentine painter Fra (1406–1469), also as young, aristocratic men. Those on the viewer’s right, St became a painter himself and was eventually considered one Jerome and St Helena, are depicted as a much older man of the most outstanding masters of his age. He frst learned and a young woman, respectively. It is of interest that the painting from his father, and then, after his father’s death, he two young men have more signifcant deformities, while the studied with (1445–1510), who had been older man and the young woman are less severely afected. Fra Filippo’s pupil. By the 1490s, he was judged by a con- The realism of the depiction of the young men’s hands temporary Florentine poet to be ‘worthy to hold frst place’ makes it probable that the artist deliberately chose mod- among such outstanding artists as Botticelli and Leonardo els with arthritic deformities or else painted the hands from da Vinci (1452–1519) [1]. Although few authorities would memory after having observed other arthritis suferers. As accept this evaluation today, Filippino Lippi is still regarded a more speculative concluding note, it is also suggested, on as one of the major painters of the Italian . the basis of comparisons with other paintings from the same The scandal of his illegitimate birth, with his father being period, that the artist may have chosen to depict the young a monk and his mother a nun, is mitigated somewhat by the male saints’ hands in this way to emphasise both their aris- circumstance that both his parents were placed in convents tocratic standing and the role of sufering and martyrdom in as young orphans (Fra Filippo was only eight when he was their traditional biographies. sent to the Carmelite monastery), a common practice at the time. As a result, it is unlikely that either one of them had a Keywords Disease in art · Arthritis · Clinodactyly · strong religious commitment to monastic life [2]. Renaissance Some time after July 1469, Filippino was commissioned to paint the altarpiece for a new altar in the church of San Michele in Foro (St Michael in the Forum) in the Tuscan city of Lucca, about 80 km west of . Money for the altar and the painting had been left in the will of one Francesco Magrini, who wished to dedicate the new altar to Saints Sebastian and Rocco, both of whom were believed to protect the faithful from plague. Magrini’s will stipulated * G. M. Weisz that the altarpiece should depict the Madonna and Child in [email protected] the centre with six saints around them, three on either side 1 School of Humanities, University of New England, [3]. The actual painting which Filippino completed around Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia 1482 (Fig. 1) showed only four of the six saints named in 2 School of Humanities and Languages, University of New Magrini’s will, and omitted the Madonna and Child. South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

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Fig. 1 Filippino Lippi (1457– 1504), Magrini Altarpiece (c. 1482), wood panel, San Michele in Foro, Lucca, Italy. Public domain via Wikipedia Com- mons

It is not known why Filippino departed from the donor’s Italy, he was said to have brought about many miracu- wishes in this way. An altarpiece without the Madonna and lous cures, but then he contracted the disease himself. Child was very unusual in Florence at that time, the only His subsequent recovery was also miraculous and he signifcant precedent for it being Antonio and Piero Pol- became one of the saints specially invoked against the laiuolo’s altarpiece with three saints completed in the late plague. He is typically shown lifting his garment to 1460s, a work which has recently been discussed in a medi- reveal either a plague bubo or the scar left by one on the cal context [4]. Art historians consider it probable that Filip- inside of his thigh. When he returned to his birthplace pino intentionally based his composition on that work, which he was so transformed by his suferings that no one rec- also showed a row of saints standing side by side across the ognised him, and to avoid worldly glory he refused to foreground of the painting [3]. disclose his identity. Consequently, he was mistaken for a spy and thrown into prison, where he languished and died, a form of martyrdom caused by his adherence to Observations the strict principle of humility. In Filippino’s painting his hands are deformed (Fig. 2), with arthritic changes The four saints shown in Filippino’s work are identifed as in a number of fngers and clinodactyly, a deviation in follows, starting from the viewer’s left. the coronal plane caused by an abnormally shaped short tubular bone, in the left little fnger [5]. Clinodactyly a. St Rocco, also known by his French name St Roch, was is often congenital, although sometimes it results from born in the late middle ages in what is now southern trauma [6]. Severe cases are now treated by osteotomy France. He was a pilgrim during his life and is depicted [7]. In addition, St Rocco’s right hand may be missing here with the traditional pilgrim’s attributes of boots, phalanxes, although it is possible that they are present large hat, and staf. While caring for plague victims in

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Fig. 2 Detail of Fig. 1 showing deformed hands of St Rocco and plague scar on his left thigh

Fig. 3 Detail of Fig. 1 showing deformed hands of St Sebastian and curled into the folds of his garment as he lifts it to display his scar. b. St Sebastian, born in Gaul in the third century AD, was that although Jerome is the oldest member of the group, an ofcer in the Roman Emperor’s Praetorian Guard. As he has relatively the least deformed hands, with only a Christian, he was condemned to death by the Emperor mildly enlarged joints on some fngers (Fig. 4). Diocletian and was shot with many arrows while bound d. St Helena was born about 250 AD. She was either the to a tree or stake. He miraculously recovered from this wife or concubine of the Roman Emperor Constantius attempted execution, but was later clubbed to death on and the mother of his successor, the Emperor Constan- the Emperor’s orders, thus undergoing a fnal martyr- tine. Like her son, the frst Christian Emperor of the dom. Because he had survived an assault with arrows, Romans, she became a convert to Christianity. At an which were traditionally regarded as emblems of pes- advanced age she was sent by Constantine to visit the tilence, he became venerated as a protector against Holy Land and was believed to have discovered the plague. He holds a symbolic arrow in Filippino’s group True Cross in Jerusalem, which she then brought to and is the youngest saint shown, yet he has the most . Although she was said to have been 80 when she deformed fngers (Fig. 3). The little fngers show clino- returned from her pilgrimage, the image on the altar- dactyly [5–7] and the index fngers are severely arthritic. This appears to be genuine deformity of severe arthritis, either degenerative or previously infammatory but now in remission. c. St Jerome, one of the Fathers of the Church, fourished around 400 AD. He was a theologian, philosopher, and linguist, translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. As a patron saint of scholars, he is often depicted reading a sacred book, but his other identifying attributes are the lion which he is said to have tamed by removing a thorn from its paw, and the stone with which he beat his breast when doing penance. Filippino’s lion looks out from behind the saint’s right leg, and there is a large stone on the ground in front of Sebastian’s feet which may refer to Jerome’s penance. It is noteworthy Fig. 4 Detail of Fig. 1 showing deformed hands of St Jerome

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piece is idealised as a young woman, holding the cross. Jerome and St Helena, it is still noteworthy that the most Her eight fngers are visible, but not her thumbs (Fig. 5). conspicuous fnger deformities are those of St Rocco and St All fingers appear swollen, with arthritic proximal Sebastian, the plague saints to whom the Magrini altar was phalangeal joints (the upper joint), not acutely infamed to be dedicated. The deformed fngers of these two fgures but rather degenerative. are portrayed with such realism as to make it probable that Filippino deliberately chose models who had genuine hand deformities, or else he painted the deformed fngers from Discussion memory after having observed them in arthritic persons at some previous time. The representation of disease and deformity in works of As a more speculative concluding note, it can also be art has long been a subject of interest to medical observ- considered why Filippino might have chosen to show the ers. In recent years, a number of publications on this topic two young men with a greater level of hand deformity than have concentrated on Renaissance paintings because of the the older man or the young woman. Throughout the 15th emphasis which the artists of that period placed on close century, painters often showed aristocratic figures with observation and naturalistic depiction of the human body a deformity of the little fnger—either clinodactyly, as in [4, 8–12]. Saints Rocco and Sebastian above, or camptodactyly, a fxed Filippino Lippi has been praised for his depiction of faces fexion of the proximal interphalangeal joint and hyperex- and his ‘naturalistic observation of physiognomy’ [13], but tension of the metacarpophalangeal and distal interphalan- some critics have regarded his treatment of hands in the geal joints [6, 17]. Such deformities of the little fnger were Magrini Altarpiece as less successful. Konody called atten- apparently regarded at the time as a sign of aristocratic tion to the saints’ ‘exaggerated bony knuckles’, which he elegance and refnement [9, 10]. In this connection, it is rel- considered to be typical of ‘all the fgures drawn by this evant that, according to their traditional biographies, Rocco master’ [14]. In addition, Neilson, while acknowledging that and Sebastian came from wealthy, aristocratic families, the hands of the four saints are ‘elaborately studied’, never- while Jerome and Helena did not. Indeed, Helena’s ‘awk- theless considered St Helena’s to be ‘awkwardly large’ [15]. wardly large’ hands [15] may have been intended by Filip- Perhaps these comments refect a weakness in Filippino’s pino to refect her humble origin as an inn-keeper [18]. earliest training, since his father Fra Filippo had also been In some cases, however, as in the Pollaiuolo altarpiece criticised during his lifetime for his inadequate rendering which Filippino took as an inspiration for his own compo- of hands [16]. sition, deformities of the kind shown in St Rocco and St Allowing, then, for some technical inadequacies in Filip- Sebastian were also used to suggest sufering and/or mar- pino’s presentation of the hands of his four saints, which tyrdom [4]. Since the legends of St Rocco and St Sebastian may account for the apparently swollen knuckles of St emphasise both sufering and martyrdom, while those of St Jerome and St Helena emphasise other kinds of achieve- ments, one may speculate that the deformed fngers of these young male saints serve two diferent symbolic purposes at once, representing not only their high social status but also the afictions that they sufered during their lives and in their forms of death. Such a double symbolic use of their deformities is made more likely by the fact that not just the ‘aristocratic’ little fngers of these fgures are afected, but other fngers as well.

Compliance with ethical standards The authors declare that they have no potential conficts of interest; that their research does not involve human participants or animal subjects; and that the issue of informed consent is not relevant.

References

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