Poster presented in 2019 at the EADV congress in Madrid, Spain Analysis of Galileo's portraits and whether he had a keratoacanthoma or a dermal naevus

1. Roth W. Keratoacanthoma on the left cheek of Galileo Galilei. Hautarzt. 1986;37:513-5.
Had Galileo Galilei a dermal nevus or a keratoacanthoma? P1037
Nicolas Kluger1,2
1Department of dermatology, allergology and venereology, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finlande
2Société Française des Sciences Humaines sur la Peau (SFSHP), Maison de la Dermatologie, Cité Malesherbes, Paris, France.
In 1986, Walter Roth, a German physician, published a letter in der Hautarzt speculating that Galileo would have had a keratoacanthoma.
During a visit to the Palazzo Pitti in Firenze, he noticed on a portrait of Galileo holding a telescope (Suttermans Justus, Ritratto di Galileo Galiei, 1640 ca.,
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria Palatina e Appartamenti Reali) a notable lesion on the left cheek. Roth did not specify the year of the painting, as he only
mentioned the beginning of the seventeenth century. On the black and white reproduction of the portrait available in der Hautartz, Galileo presents indeed
a papule or nodule of the left cheekbone with a central depression, suggestive of a keratoacanthoma (Figure 1).
Reproduction of the painting as published in black
and white in der Hautarzt in 1986 [1] with a
crateriform papule of the cheek
Galileo had a flesh colored papule of the
left cheekbone that had been visible at
least since the age of 40.
Galileo did not hide it as indicated by the
choice of a left profile and contemporary
painters did not try to remove this lesion
from the painting. It seems unlikely that
Galileo had had a keratoacanthoma on
the cheek for more than 20 years. A basal
cell carcinoma seems unlikely as well. The
lesion does not seem to have grown over
time, but Galileo died several years after
the culprit painting. We hypothesized that
Galileo was most likely had a dermal
nevus. The depressed central "crateriform"
aspect on the portrait from 1640 exposed
in Palazzo Pitti is astonishing and
unexplained.
Galileo was 75 at the time. The photo-exposed location on the face and the clinical aspect are indeed suggestive of keratoacanthoma. Its evolution is usually
triphasic with a phase of fast growth, stabilization and possibility of spontaneous regression. It is therefore sufficient to analyze other prior or older portraits
to assess whether this lesion has been already present or absent.
A portrait from
1602-1607 by
Francesco
Apollodoro from
the National
Maritime Museum
in London portrays
Galileo around his
forties. A flesh-
colored papule is
clearly visible while
Galileo's beard is
less abundant and
still brown (Figure
2).
Sustermans painted several similar portraits of Galileo: the first, painted in
1636, is in Florence (Figure 3a) and the second, which is slightly different, was
painted 4 years later and is in London (Figure 3b). In both versions, the lesion is
always a flesh colored papule without notable depression.
Figure 3bFigure 3aFigure 2
Figure 1