Painter Michelangelo hid VERY rude ‘feminine symbols’ in the Sistine Chapel, researchers claim

ARTISTS are well known for their love of painting women with no knickers on.

But when he painted the Sistine Chapel, Michaelangelo was reportedly told to cut down on the raunch and focus on religion instead.

Now art detectives are claiming he snuck in a whole load of references to female private parts into his masterpiece, subtly installing representations of a woman's safe space throughout the building.

In the journal Clinical Anatomy, a team led by Dr Deivis de Campos, a human anatomy researcher at the Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre in Brazil, set out his theory that the celebrated artist festooned the Sistine Chapel with representations of female naughty bits.

The researchers wrote: "Like other Renaissance artists of his time, Michelangelo often introduced anatomic figures, sexual innuendos and rude insults to patrons without them being aware.

"For him, Christianity was not superior to any other form of religion.

"Being a devotee of the simplicity and perfection of ancient pagan Greco-Roman art, Michelangelo idolized all the teachings associated with the sacred feminine.

"This is because the power of women and their ability to produce life was held very sacred in ancient pagan and Jewish teachings. However, this threatened the rise of the predominantly male Catholic Church."

This highly speculative claim suggests Michelangelo was a feminist - a concept which was unheard of in the Renaissance.

Michelangelo stationed rams' heads throughout the chapel, which the researchers claimed were used to represent the uterus, ovaries and Fallopian tubes.

They also claimed Eve's arms form the very centre of the ceiling and are shown forming a downward triangle, which apparently alludes to an ancient fertility symbol.

Previous research claimed that the artists also hid allusions to parts of the human body which could only be seen by dissecting cadavers - something which was banned at the time.

"In Michelangelo's time, the dissection of cadavers was severely repressed by the Catholic Church as the human body was considered a divine mystery," the team wrote.

"In times of intolerance and religious persecution, art almost never dared to openly express what the artist was eager to communicate."