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The mystery of post‐axial polydactyly in Renaissance paintings

2015; Wiley; Volume: 55; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/cga.12115

1741-4520

Alessia Coralli, Antonio Perciaccante,

Genetic and rare skin diseases.

Post-axial polydactyly (PAP) is a group of sporadic or familial congenital anomalies involving the ulnar side of the hand or peroneal side of the foot. It may be subdivided into Type A (PAP-A): extra-digit is well formed and articulates with fifth or an extra-carpal/tarsal; and Type B (PAP-B): extra-digit is rudimentary (Malik 2014). Very surprising is the frequency of PAP reported in some paintings (Fig. 1) of three Italian Renaissance painters: Raffaello (1483–1520), Perugino (1448–1523) and Timoteo Viti (1469–1523). (A) Raffaello. “The Marriage of the Virgin” (1504). Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marriage_of_the_Virgin_(Raphael)). (B) Raffaello. “The beautiful gardener” (1507). Paris, Musée du Louvre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_belle_jardinière). (C) Perugino. “The Marriage of the Virgin” (1501–1504). Caen, Musée des beaux arts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_of_the_Virgin_(Perugino)). (D) Timoteo Viti. “The Virgin with Saints Sebastian and John the Baptist” (1512–1520). Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera (http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_150601/Timoteo-Viti/The-Virgin-with-Saints-Sebastian-and-John-the-Baptist). Two cases of PAP-A have been already reported in two masterpieces of Raffaello (Mimouni et al. 2000): on the left foot of St. Joseph in “The Marriage of the Virgin” (Fig. 1A) and on the left foot of the infant John in “The beautiful gardener” (Fig. 1B). The authors suggest that the two models may be relatives. Our research shows a more complex and intriguing situation. Indeed, looking more carefully at this second painting, we observe a PAP-B on Madonna's left foot. We report further two cases of PAP-A in a famous painting by Perugino, also it titled “The Marriage of the Virgin” (Fig. 1C). The extra-digit is present on the right foot of St. Joseph and on the left foot of the woman close to the Virgin. Finally, we found a further case of PAP-A on the right foot of St. John in “The Virgin with Saints Sebastian and John the Baptist” by Timoteo Viti (Fig. 1D). The explanation for this “predilection” for polydactyly is still unknown. It is unlikely to be a careless error, because it is repeated several times and in different paintings. More probably, the anomalies were really present in people selected as models. The hypothesis that all models with polydactyly belonged to same family is very intriguing. It is certain that Raffaello knew Perugino and Timoteo Viti and all artists frequented the same places of work and the same people (Vasari 1986). The incidence of familial polydactyly was estimated at 139 cases/million/live-births per year and approximately 50% of subjects with polydactyly and positive family history had at least one affected parent, 26% a sibling, and 17% a grandparent (Materna-Kyriluk et al. 2013). PAP is inherited as an autosomal dominant trait with penetrance approximately 68% for Type A and approximately 43% for Type B. Mapping studies showed the presence of four distinct autosomal dominant entities exhibiting phenotypes A and B simultaneously (Malik 2014). Thus, they may be present in members of the same family or in same individual simultaneously. In conclusion, the hypothesis that Raffaello, Perugino and Timoteo Viti may have represented a rare case of familial PAP is plausible.