10 Historical Personalities Different Than We Thought

The image we have of the great characters in history is usually formed by what historians report, but also by the way these personalities are portrayed in Hollywood books and films, for example. But as some research shows, they may not look like we’re used to.

At the awesome.club we decided to present the most perplexing examples.

Contemporary researchers claim that Leonardo Da Vinci’s little-known “Portrait of a Musician” is a self-portrait. Thanks to him we can see how the greatest thinker of the Renaissance saw himself, not in old age, but as a young man of 33 years. His appearance in the painting completely matches the description of historians who claim that Da Vinci he was handsome, proportionate, with an elegant, attractive face.

In ancient statues and on TV screens, we see the majestic and forced face of one of the most famous rulers of Ancient Rome. Not surprisingly, most sculptors and biographers adulem openly Caesar when portraying or describing their appearance. One look at the sculpture in the Torlonia Museum in Italy, the post-mortem portrait of the ruler, is enough to understand how far our view of Caesar’s appearance is far from reality.

During our lifetime, we come across at least two images of Aristotle: the first is a sophisticated philosopher from the pages of textbooks; the second is the grizzled mentor of Alexander the Great, played by Anthony Hopkins. We found that the two ideas about the famous philosopher are far from reality🇧🇷 According to Greek biographers, Aristotle had “defects of speech, short legs, small eyes, wore elegant clothes and a trimmed beard”.

Recently, English historian and botanist Mark Griffiths announced the sensational discovery what you did when studying the book on Botany The Herball, published at the end of the 16th century. One of the four figures depicted on the cover, according to the scientist, is a portrait of world-famous playwright William Shakespeare. This small ink sketch is not only the only portrait of the writer, but an important confirmation of the very fact of his existence – which has already been questioned by some researchers on the grounds that the texts attributed to Shakespeare were, in fact, written by others. authors.

In real life, the prototype of General Máximo from the movie Gladiator, Caio Júlio Vero Maximo, stood out for his physical strength and enormous height, extremely cruel and arrogant. If in the movie his story ended with a touching scene in the gladiator arena, he it’s actually over on the thronein the rank of the first “soldier-emperor”.

King George VI, father of the current Queen Elizabeth II of England, was not so insecure and melancholy, as shown in the movie The king’s speech🇧🇷 On the contrary, he served in the navy and air force, and when the bombs began to fall on London, he refused to leave the city. With his appearance, George VI could even compete with the Hollywood heartthrob Colin Firth: he was tall, thin, with defined features, he looked like a true monarch, not only in the photo, but in life.

For a long time, we know what the author of heliocentrism looked like only from some images of Copernicus taken in his youth. Only in 2005, remains of him were found during excavations at Frombork Cathedral and were solemnly buried. Before that, experts from the Central Criminalistics Laboratory of the Polish police rebuilt the face of Copernicus shortly before his death🇧🇷 A fractured nose and a scar on his eyebrow show that the famous scientist’s life must have been much more interesting than we thought.

Numerous studies and debates surrounding the nearly intact tomb of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun have also shed light on its appearance. Today we can say with certainty that Tutankhamun was not a very handsome man, as his funeral mask represents him. According to scientists, the pharaoh had a fragile and disproportionate physique, as he suffered from genetic diseases. In addition, he likely had malaria, which led to his untimely death: Tutankhamun died before the age of 20.

“If you no longer love me, then I have nothing to do on this earth,” wrote Napoleon Bonaparte to his incomparable muse. Not in vain, even after 40 years, artists painted the First Lady of France as a brunette with rosy cheeks and delicate facial features. But if you look at portraits made before Napoleon’s accession to the throne, you can see a completely different woman: an average middle-aged Frenchwoman🇧🇷 This is especially evident in the works of Andrea Appiani, made in different years.

Queen Nefertiti was called “perfect”. Her face was depicted on the walls of temples as the representation of the cult of the new god Aten. In 2003, after scanning a mummy found in 1898 and christened by scientistsYounger Lady (Young lady), it was concluded that it is from Nefertiti. It was concluded that the appearance of the famous queen was infinitely far from her historical representation.

And so, anthropologists and historians continue to research characters and historical facts and change our perception of the most important facts in history.