13th Century Tuscan Painter Was Obsessed With Cocks

Dick drawings are one of the most universal things imaginable, making their way into the margins of bored students' notebooks the world over. They even found a place in ancient art as well, apparently. What you see right there is The Massa Marittima, a Tuscan mural created in the 13th Century, and it is littered with dicks. It's positively sick with them.

The mural was brought to our attention by Metro UK (link below), who point out that the mural was discovered in 2000, but only just restored in 2011. There's clearly something nefarious and overtly sexual at play in this mural, but it seems as though the dick tree is actually historically significant to Tuscan culture of the time.

Nobody really knows why it was painted in 1265 or what it really means.

Some think it is a clear fertility symbol because it stands by a fountain – the town’s main source of water in medieval times.

Others believe it to have a political message from one powerful party, the Guelphs, to another, the Ghibellines.

It has been interpreted as a message that, if the Ghibellines were given power, they would bring nothing but witchcraft, heresy and perversion.

At the time the mural was painted, the Guelphs controlled Massa Marittima.

If this interpretation is correct then the women below are witches, in line with the myth that witches had the power to steal a man’s penis.

George Ferzoco, director of the Centre for Tuscan Studies at the University of Leicester, said: ‘There was a well-known story in Tuscan folklore about witches removing mens’ penises and placing them in bird nests in trees, where they would then multiply and take on a life of their own.’

He added: ‘Heretics, according to people in the Middle Ages, practised sodomy. Hence the phallus tree.’

Hence the Phallus Tree is also, coincidentally, the title of my upcoming autobiography.

Via Metro UK