Why Do Mary’s Breasts Look So Peculiar?

The anatomical strangeness that was meant to uphold her perfection

Madonna and Child (1370s) by Paolo di Giovanni Fei. Tempera on wood, gold ground. 68.6 × 42.9 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, U.S. Image source The Met (public domain)

Back in the 13th century, there was a widely-told story called Les Miracles de Notre Dame in which a “heathen” was said to have witnessed two “well-formed” breasts arising from a painting of the Virgin and spontaneously issuing oil “as from a spring”.