The Object in the Madonna with Saint Giovannino
The account
In the background of a Renaissance painting, a man and his dog gaze up at a glowing disc hovering in the sky.
What investigators found
Art historians see a religious symbol there, most likely linked to the announcement of Jesus's birth to the shepherds.
The story
The painting known as the Madonna with Saint Giovannino, from the late 15th century, hangs in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. It was once attributed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, but scholars now point to other Florentine painters of the period. In the foreground are Mary, the infant Jesus and the young Saint John. In the background, on the right, a man shading his eyes with his hand and a dog watch a glowing oval object in the sky.
That detail has made the work one of the most cited in lists of UFOs in ancient art. Art historians explain that bright clouds, stars and angels were common ways of depicting the divine presence. The man looking up would be a shepherd, a reference to the announcement of Jesus's birth. For them, reading the detail as a spacecraft means taking the painting out of its time.