New research on Botticelli’s Venus supports a death from a pituitary tumour diagnosis

The Medical Humanities paper published by the BMJ is the third in a series of papers led by Professor Paolo Pozzilli, in which he’s set out his research on the Renaissance aristocrat, Simonetta Vespucci, Sandro Botticelli’s muse, who died at just 23 from suspected tuberculosis.

Simonetta Vespucci (c. 1453–1476), born Simonetta Cattaneo in Genoa, was a Renaissance beauty dubbed ‘La Bella Simonetta’. Married at 16 to Marco Vespucci, she captivated Florence’s elite, including the Medici family.

Botticelli painted her in both The Birth of Venus and Primavera, and was so devoted to her that he asked to be buried at her feet. The ‘Venus squint’ made famous in her paintings was copied by other artists and became a hallmark of Renaissance beauty.

Professor Paolo Pozzilli’s previous examination of documents about her death, and of the portraits, suggested an expanding pituitary tumour led to pituitary apoplexy, an acute condition ending in bleeding and death. This may have been sparked by dancing, or a violent rape – both suggested by the historical record.

Eyes support pituitary tumour diagnosis

In the latest paper, Pozzilli’s team examines Botticelli’s depiction of Vespucci’s eyes in the famous Birth of Venus, and in other portraits of her.

The findings support the original hypothesis. They describe swelling around the woman’s eyes, particularly her left eye. The tissue covering the white part of the eye is loose or folded, and the tissue underneath is swollen with fluid.

These changes, together with a squint (where the eyes do not point in the same direction), may be associated with a large tumour of the pituitary gland. There is also some swelling around her right eye.

Paolo Pozzilli Honorary Professor of Diabetes and Clinical Research at Queen Mary University of London, said:

“Sandro Botticelli was a brilliant artist who depicted his subjects with great realism. So it is not surprising that he’s left medical evidence in his paintings that we are able to read centuries later. The squint (‘strabismus’) of Venus in Simonetta Vespucci’s portraits embodies a poignant paradox: once exalted as the epitome of divine allure in Renaissance art and copied by artists like Bronzino, it now reveals itself as a subtle harbinger of her doom.”

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Read the paper: Pituitary neuroendocrine tumour and strabismus in a young woman who died in 1476

DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2026-014199

Read the previous papers:

2019 VENUS BY BOTTICELLI AND HER PITUITARY ADENOMA - PubMed

2026 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/edm2.70261