Paintings of Native Americans Discovered in Vatican Fresco

Here's a look at the ancient West from a different perspective: A routine cleaning of a fresco in the Vatican Library has revealed what officials say is the first painted depiction of Native Americans, and likely the only reference to Indians in all of the Vatican's epic artwork.

The resplendent fresco, which depicts the resurrection of Jesus from a stone tomb, shows a small group of men in the distant background, unclothed and with feathers in their hair.

Detail of Pinturiccio's "Resurrection"

It was painted in an arch-shaped alcove by Bernardino di Betto, better known as Pinturiccio or "little painter," in 1494 -- just a year after Christopher Columbus made first contact with Tainos, Caribs, among other American cultures.

Whether the figures in the painting are indeed references to the people Columbus had just met -- and if so, why they were incorporated to the painting -- remains unclear. But Vatican Museums Director Antonio Paolucci told the Italian newspaper Gazzetta del Sud he thinks it's more than plausible. "It would be far-fetched ... to believe that the papal court was oblivious to what Colombo saw when he got to the other end of the world,” Paolucci said, according to Indian Country Today.

“If the impressions of those nude, good, happy men who gave parrots as gifts and painted their bodies red and black are the dancing figures of Pinturicchio’s Resurrection, this would be the first representation of Native Americans.”

To that we'd just add that there are, in fact, thousands of paintings of Native Americans to be found in pictographs throughout the Americas.

There's no accounting for taste.

Pinturiccio's "Resurrection"