Having previously explained that the portrait of God in the Sistine Chapel’s Creation of Man panel is Leonardo da Vinci, there are other features in the fresco which Michelangelo adapted from two paintings of his rival: The Annunciation and the Louvre version of the Virgin of the Rocks.

In the Annunciation, commentators have pointed out what they perceive as an oddity in the length of the Virgin’s right arm, and the extended section of Gabriel’s right wing. It has been assumed that the extension was painted by someone other than Leonardo at a later date. As for the anomaly associated with the Virgin’s arm, the Uffizi Gallery, where the painting is housed, suggests the distortion may be “a reflection of Leonardo’s early research into optics…”

However, both assumptions are incorrect. The wing and arm extensions were intentional on the part of Leonardo.

Michelangelo picked up on this by showing the Creator with his right arm extended and his left arm formed in the shape of a wing (see previous post). His extended right arm points to the figure of Adam who is later destined to fall from grace after tasting the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. This is a pointer to Leonardo (made in God’s image and likeness) and his fall from grace with the Medici family and departure from Florence (the Garden) to Milan.

In a later fresco painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel – The Last Judgement – Leonardo is depicted as the Damned Man, representing the Fall of Man. The green serpent biting into his thigh is a pointer to the coat of arms of Milan, the Biscione, which shows a serpent swallowing the figure of a man.

The Fall of Man theme also connects to Leonardo’s Annunciation. The extended wing is painted to resemble wax and is a reference to Icarus, the Greek mythology figure who flew too close to the sun and fell to earth. (More here).

The wing and long arm features in the Annunciation are extended or continued themes from an earlier painting he is associated with, the Baptism of Christ. The four figures in this painting are Andrea del Verrocchio as Christ; Leonardo and Botticelli as the two kneeling angels; and Domenico Ghirlandaio as John the Baptist. Three of the quartet, Leonardo, Botticelli and Ghirlandaio, can also be identified in Michelangelo’s Creation of Man: Leonardo as the Creator, Botticelli as the angel at the feet of Eve (Simonetta Vespucci), and Ghirlandaio as the head of John the Baptist immediately beneath the right arm of the Creator.

That Botticelli and Ghirlandaio are both featured in the panel is another reference to the pair also embedded in a disguised manner in the Annunciation as the men responsible for anonymously reporting Leonardo to the Florentine authorities accusing him of sodomy.

The head of Ghirlandaio (or John the Baptist) In the Creation of Man, is linked to John in the Baptism of Christ painting by the feathered style of his hair meant to represent a dead bird.

The same motif appears behind the head of the Baptist in the rock formation shaped as a head beneath a dead bird. Notice also the shape of a broken wing cut from the rock. In the same painting, observe the baptismal cloth in the shape of a wing carried by Leonardo – the angel at the forefront. 

Notice, too, that the head of the Baptist rests on a shoulder in Michelangelo’s fresco, just as the rock formation is placed at the shoulder of John in the Baptism of Christ painting. This begs the question, who are the two angels whose heads are placed at the shoulders of the Creator? No answer for this just yet, but it does lead on to why the Creator’s left hand rests on the right shoulder of the angel depicted as Botticelli.

The hand’s formation is similar to the hand of Mary resting on the shoulder of the infant John the Baptist in Leonardo’s Louvre version of the Virgin of the Rocks. It resembles an heraldic seated lion – lion sejant. Leonardo “signed’ some of his paintings with a lion (Leonardo) or similar references at the shoulder of one of his subjects. The Mona Lisa is a classic example. The lion is shaped in the rocks at the woman’s right shoulder (see my post, Leonardo’s monumental cliffs). A lion-sphinx shape also appears on the shoulder of the young woman in Leonardo’s Benois Madonna. In his painting said to be of Ginevra de’ Benci, the signature shape at the right shoulder is the bear associated with St Gaul.

Andrea Mantegna, was aware of Leonardo’s signature motif. In his painting of the Parnassus  (also known as Mars and Venus), Leonardo is depicted in several ways, notably as Pegasus at the shoulder of Mercury, but also as the face of a lion on the left shoulder of the crumbling bridge. There is a third representation; Leonardo’s profile is shaped as a knot attached to the shoulder of the “chaise longue” (long chair) depicted in French colours, and the two cushions placed on the seat represent his hat.

The Virgin’s right hand in the Annunciation is another instance of resting on a shoulder. In this situation it is shaped as a claw resting on the inclined lectern, reminiscent of a claw-shaped page turner, pressing down. When the image is rotated 90 degrees to the right, the hand is dove shaped, symbolising the Holy Spirit; the thumb as the dove’s head, the fingers as a wing.

Michelangelo was aware of this feature and adapted it to represent the left hand of Eve (Simonetta) gripping the hand of the Creator (the Word) as well as representing the hen covering her chicks, as explained in my previous post.

The left hand of the Creator is also shaped as a lion sejant, seated on the angel’s shoulder, but notice the extended forefinger and how it appears double jointed. This is a pointer to another feature of the hand shaped to represent the head and forelegs of a sacrificial lamb, the Lamb of God. And so now we have a pairing of a lion and and a lamb, a biblical reference symbolising peace. The finger also points to Botticelli as one of two men who had a hand in Leonardo’s denunciation.

There yet another feature in the scene that connects to Leonardo’s Annunciation which I shall explain in my next post.