Michelangelo was a great artist, but a rather short man, researchers write.

The works of Michelangelo Buonarroti are world famous. But we know very little about the artist himself. In an effort to learn more about him, researchers have now taken a closer look at his alleged shoes and used them to estimate his height. The research shows that the great artist was small in stature; he would have been about six feet tall. That can be read in the magazine Anthropology.

Shoes by Michelangelo

Researchers bowed to the study as mentioned about footwear that is strongly suspected to have belonged to Michelangelo. It comes with two shoes and a slipper. The footwear comes from the Casa Buonarroti Museum; a house that belonged to Michelangelo and was later transformed into a museum. “It Casa Buonarroti Museum is full of objects that belonged to Michelangelo, and among them is this footwear,” said researcher Elena Varotto, an anthropologist and bioarchaeologist at the FABAB (Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology and Bioarchaeology) Research center in Italy. Although it cannot be stated with certainty that the shoes actually belonged to Michelangelo, there are convincing indications that this is the case. According to the historian Elisa Tosi Brandi, affiliated with the University of Bologna and an expert in fashion history, the style (of the shoes, ed.) fits the time in which Michelangelo lived.”

To measure

To get an idea of ​​Michelangelo’s height, the shoes and slipper were measured very accurately. The researchers then applied a formula that was developed a few years ago that makes it possible to determine how tall someone is based on the measurements of hands or feet. And judging by the footwear, the researchers conclude that Michelangelo must have been around 1.60 meters tall.

Vasari

It is in line with what Giorgio Vasari – a contemporary of Michelangelo and author of several biographies of Italian artists – confided to his readers. “Vasari wrote that Michelangelo was of average height,” said researcher Francesco M. Galassi, who is also affiliated with the FABAB Research Center. “That is consistent with our estimate and estimates of the length of Tuscan populations over time that can be found in the anthropological literature.”

Not surprising

The results of the research therefore do not come as a surprise to the scientists involved. But Galassi can imagine that others are somewhat surprised that Michelangelo was small in stature. “And because of the common (unscientific) idea that taller people are more intelligent.” With that assumption in mind, it may be strange to find that a man who stood head and shoulders above others in his art was himself quite ordinary in construction.

Important research

According to Varotto, the research is very important. “We know a lot about Michelangelo’s artistic productions, but much less about himself.” Studies have been published in the past that provided more insight into Michelangelo’s personal life and suggested, for example, that his hands were heavily affected by arthritis in the last phase of his life. It has also been suggested that he suffered from gout. However, such claims were always based on indirect sources; portraits of Michelangelo or his own writings. This new research is clearly very different; direct evidence was used to establish the height of the great master: the footwear that Michelangelo left behind.

Whether the length that comes out of the measurements of these shoes really gives a good idea of ​​Michelangelo’s height, remains a mystery. And the researchers recognize that too. In order to determine Michelangelo’s height with certainty, his remains must actually be excavated. But that will not happen in the short term – partly on the basis of ethical considerations. And so we have to make do with what his shoes tell us, more than 450 years after the world-famous artist passed away.