Three saints with deformed extremities in an Italian Renaissance altarpiece.

A fifteenth-century Florentine altarpiece painted by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Antonio (1433-1498) and Piero (1443-1496), shows three saints with evident deformities of the hands and feet. The pathologies concerned are tentatively identified, and various rationales for their presence in the painting are discussed. Of particular importance is the location of the altarpiece in a chapel which houses the tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal, Prince James of Lusitania (1433-1459). It is argued that both the artistic style of the day and the religious symbolism of the Cardinal's funeral chapel contributed to the artists' decision to portray the saints with deformities. An unnatural curvature of the fifth finger was apparently considered elegant in fifteenth-century paintings, and the depiction of bare feet with hallux valgus gave them a shape which approximated and could have been caused by fashionable pointed shoes. But in addition, deformities in religious art could be symbolic of suffering and martyrdom, a theme which the Cardinal's chapel emphasised in a number of ways. It is suggested therefore that the Pollaiuolo altarpiece reconciles these two disparate factors, portraying genuine deformities in a way that was artistically stylish and symbolically meaningful.

'Epidemic' of hand deformities in the French Renaissance paintings of Jean and François Clouet.

This article analyses the nature of the multiple finger anomalies found in portraits by the French Renaissance artistic dynasty, the Clouets. The multiplicity of finger anomalies could be either innocent congenital variants, or pathological and traumatic deformities. In view of the presence of such `beautifying variations' in the works of other Renaissance artists, the authors decided that these features were not the result of an epidemic of deformities, but instead represented a stylistic approach in paintings of this period at the French Court.

[The past and present of thumb reconstruction]. / Historie a soucasnost rekonstrukce palce ruky.

The thumb is the most important digit for hand function. Its role is not only functional, but also aesthetic, the hand being a very exposed part of the body. Loss of the thumb can lead to life-long physical and mental stigma. With regard to this experience, early reconstruction of the thumb in order to return patients to normal life as soon as possible is clearly preferred. When using early thumb reconstruction, the patient does not gain wrong stereotypes in hand-grip manoeuvres. The paper presents an overview of current options for non-microsurgical and microsurgical thumb reconstruction techniques.

["Praying hands" of Albrecht Durer regarded by physicians]. / "Modlace sie rece" - Albrechta Durera ogladane oczyma lekarzy.

Albrecht Durer is a great artist between Middle Ages and Renaissance. He is an author of Four Books on Human Proportions and Perspective. He is also the author of the study of the hands on blue paper - "Praying Hands". This person could have had various diseases: diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, or a circulatory failure. The importance of Durer's works is illustrated by its historical, medical, and artistic interpretation.

A medieval casebook: hand cures documented in the Icelandic Sagas of bishops.

The Sagas of Icelandic bishops composed in and around the 13th century reveal something of the incidence and treatment of various hand conditions in the medieval period. A selection from the relevant material is translated and discussed.

Locomotor diseases in sculpture.

In the sculpture The Adoration of the Magi by the 13th century sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio deformities characteristic of arthritis may be seen in the hands of the central magus.