Report: Underneath Clothing, Renaissance Popes Were Naked

“It was an Emperor’s New Clothes moment for us,” admitted Father Nithi.

Rome, March 23 – Papal scholars have come to believe that some of the most venerable and venerated figures in Roman Catholicism were wearing nothing beneath their garments when they posed for portraits, a Vatican spokesman announced today.

Father Nudio Nithi told reporters that researchers examining the paintings of numerous popes between 1400 and 1600 have now become convinced that the vestments and regalia depicted in those portraits – some by towering figures in art history – constitute merely a set of coverings, but that underneath their impressive robes, those men were wearing nothing.

“It was an Emperor’s New Clothes moment for us,” admitted Father Nithi. “I found it hard to assimilate in my mind. There I was, contemplating Caravaggio’s portrait of Pope Paul V, and I had to remind myself that the red and white garb the artist depicted does not show the truth of the painting’s subject. It was sobering. Everyone had to be aware of it at the time, given what we know about the period, but there’s nary a mention of it contemporary sources. I must have stood staring at the pope for a full five minutes, imagining him naked.”

Some of the most famous artists of the period had a hand in the apparent deception, explained art historian Hugh Donesay. “Titian’s monumental portrait of Pope Paul III doesn’t even begin to show what the man wasn’t wearing,” he observed. “There is no way that uniform, as impressive as it is, goes all the way in. But for centuries, scholars, men of faith, and laypeople alike have missed this astounding fact.”

Donesay added that researchers are now taking up the question of whether popes from other periods were similarly unclothed beneath their clothing. “We can speculate, obviously, but serious inquiry has to be more disciplined than that,” he cautioned. “Does the current pope wear anything under his clothes? It seems a brazen question to ask, but scholars have to ask some tough questions no matter whom it makes uncomfortable.”

“Even regarding the renaissance itself we are left with tantalizing uncertainty,” he continued. “In Raphael’s portrait of Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals, if the pope is indeed naked beneath those layers, what about the men at his side? Was this phenomenon even confined to men of God? What does this discovery mean for our understanding of other people of the period? What about the people before? How far back does this phenomenon extend? This can only be the beginning of the journey of uncove- I mean of discovery.”

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