The Story: Ms. Mona Lisa has just been diagnosed with high cholesterol–but she isn’t the first work of art to be ailed by disease.
The Search: Mona Lisa Cholesterol
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and to many beholden art fanatics not currently trolling the internet for fake nude images of Megan Fox, Mona Lisa is the most beautiful vision on any canvas hung on any wall the world over. While the image painted by Leonardo DaVinci (a distant relative of Leonardo DiCaprio) has come to define an otherworldly allure, it turns out the merchant’s wife with the sly smile may have not exactly been the picture of perfect health. An Italian medical expert with entirely too much time on his hands has determined that the ageless oil-painted head-turner probably had high cholesterol due to visual evidence of a xanthelasma, or a cholesterol deposit, in her left eye. Nevermind why we needed to know that, because Vito Franco, Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Palermo, has been dedicating time and presumably wasting valuable grant money searching for venereal diseases in Vermeer paintings and staring at sculptures to spy sickness. In order to expedite his research, we here at OneRiot did a little medical ogling of our own, free of charge no less, and found some shocking historical art ailments for Franco to add to his list. Here goes nothing:
Whistler’s Mother- Whistler’s Mother was paralyzed from the waist down. Why else would she be sitting?
Venus DeMilo- Leprosy. The whole no arms thing is a dead giveaway. (more…)
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