Michelangelo's 'The Last Judgement' was 'inspired by visiting gay saunas'

Renaissance artist Michelangelo's work The Last Judgement was inspired by visiting gay saunas 400 years ago, according to an Italian historian.

The beautiful fresco adorns the wall behind the wall of the Sistine Chapel in St Peter's where cardinals hold their conclave when electing a Pope.

It took four years for Michelangelo to complete and shows several semi naked male figures rising to Heaven or descending into Hell on the day of the Last Judgement.

The Last Judgement by Michelangelo on the wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museum in Rome Italy

At the time he worked on it, Michelangelo was condemned by Cardinal Oliviero Carafa, who accused the artist of immorality and obscenity as the genitals of several figures could be seen.

Senior cardinals - including the master of ceremonies of the then Pope - called for the offending articles to be painted over with fig leafs as they were more typical of 'public baths than a Christian chapel'.

However the Pope refused although eventually 24 years after Michelangelo died fig leaves were painted onto the fresco by one of his own students Daniele Da Volterra.

Now historian Elena Lazzarini, of Pisa University, has said that the fresco, which she calls 'a true obscenity' was inspired by Michelangelo's visits to the gay saunas and brothels of Rome in the early 1500's.

Mrs Lazzarini said: 'The very virile male bodies you can see in the fresco have the build of labourers and manual workers of the day, very muscle bound and well built.

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'Michelangelo and several of his artist contemporaries would visit these brothels and saunas and you can see how they modelled their figures on the bodies of the men they found in there, including their pained expressions.

'For example in the fresco you can see one poor soul being dragged down to Hell by his testicles whilst among those that are going to Heaven there is a lot of kissing and hugging, certainly of a homosexual nature.'

Mrs Lazzarini added that 500 years ago Rome was rife with 'stufe' gay brothels and saunas that had also been popular 2,000 years ago during the time of the ancient Romans.

She added:'They were well known haunts for homosexuals and also where men went to have beauty treatments such as hot stones or having blood sucking leeches attached to their bodies.

'There were also rooms available where clients could make use of male and female prostitutes in between the various treatments they were having and these were popular haunts for Michelangelo and his fellow artists.

'There is documentary evidence that Michelangelo visited these places and its very likely he drew inspiration for the male form from these saunas which he used in the Last Judgement.'

Mrs Lazzarini is putting her research into a book called 'Nudity, art and decorum, aesthetic oscillations in 15th Century writings,' which has just been published.

Michelangelo is not known to have married and he developed a close relationship with a man half his age when he was in his late 50's and he wrote 300 love poems to him.

Towards the end of his life he did also become close to a woman called Vittoria Colonna, a poet and widow, who he also wrote poems for but they are not thought to have had a physical relationship.

By NICK PISA

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