Robot portrait of San Isidro Labrador: he was tall, of African descent and died at the age of 45

Eight hundred and ninety-two years after his death, the people of Madrid have been able to put a face to their patron today.

A face based on science, yes: a team of forensic doctors from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) has literally gone through the scanner to San Isidro Labrador, one of the most beloved saints and with the most devotees, to reconstruct his appearance and to clarify the causes of his death which, according to his conclusions, took place around the year 1130.

An estimate that coincides with what the official bull of his canonization said, of which this year marks the 400th anniversary.

From the study of his bones, forensics

probably between the ages of 35 and 45, which corrects some later accounts that held that he would have reached the age of 90.

And it is that as explained in a telephone interview by

, episcopal delegate for the Causes of Saints in Madrid, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his canonization, it was proposed to open the urn in which the remains of San Isidro rest in the Collegiate Church that bears his name "so that the faithful could see the Saint's incorrupt body exposed. It is something that is only done on very special occasions, once or twice a century at the most, and the last time it was opened was in 1985, in the centenary of the Diocese of Madrid", details

"Taking advantage of the opening and progress of forensic sciences, it was considered that in

out, which has been preserved since the 12th century and is one of the oldest relics. and important in Madrid", says Fernández.

The initiative for this study, presented today at the UCM School of Medicine, came from the Congregation of San Isidro, in charge of guarding the body.

At the request of the Archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal Carlos Osoro, the Vatican authorized the study of the body, which was produced "discreetly to avoid leaks and sensationalism" over four days in February 2022, and which, as Fernández recounts, included

in Madrid to undergo a TAC.

The Police escort the body of San Isidro to carry out the scannerArchimadrid

The doctor in Legal and Forensic Medicine,

was one of the professors of the Department of Legal Medicine, Psychiatry and Pathology of the Faculty of Medicine of the UCM who has analyzed the mummy of this famous man from Madrid who was born in the year 1082 - There was no discrepancy on this aspect - and he died in 1130. "

and that in turn could be inserted into the tomography apparatus," he points out.

That was the technology used because

: "We could not touch the body directly. All the transfers were made with extreme care, holding it with the cloths. DNA allows us to obtain a lot of information such as the lineage of the parents, the physical characteristics such as eye and hair color, or diseases with a genetic predisposition, but in the case of the soft tissues of the mummies, the DNA is usually highly degraded and also,

To obtain an indubitable sample of DNA, we would have to take it from a tooth or from a non-superficial bone, so doing it was ruled out," says this forensic doctor. Although her team had already analyzed various mummies, she considers it "shocking" and "a great opportunity having been able to study the body of San Isidro for what it represents for Madrid".

With the information from the scanner, they have been able to find out a great deal about this famous man from Madrid, among which stands out "that he was of African descent, which means that he

says Ana Patricia Moya.

"This data also tells us about what Madrid was like in the 11th century, where great consideration was held for a person who came from another place. It must have been a society in which people of different origins lived together, as is the case now, although there will be study this aspect better", points out Alberto Fernández.

The researchers from the UCM and the episcopal delegate of Causes of the Saints of Madrid during the study of San IsidroArchimadrid

The man who ended up being canonized and converted into San Isidro must have been very loved in Madrid, because as Fernández reviews,

. Charity was famous in the house of San Isidro, who was married with María Toribia (who passed on to tradition as Santa María de la Cabeza, and with whom he had a son, Illán. He led a very simple life, was an employee in the house of Juan de Vargas and went on to become the patron of farmers, so there is a lot of devotion to it also in many South American countries or in the Philippines," he recalls.

"Forty years after his death, they took him from the San Andrés cemetery to the Church of San Andrés, in La Latina, at which time they realized that

because already in life miracles had been attributed to him, as recorded in the Codex of Juan Dácono of 1270, which is the first written source on the life of San Isidro", points out Fernández, who assures that his objective was "to discern the popular legend from the true story about this figure ".

For a body to mummify naturally -since San Isidro was not treated with any product- certain conditions of temperature, humidity and pressure are needed in the weeks or months after its burial, according to Moya: "It has to There may have been dehydration in that period so that the mummified tissues are maintained. In the case of San Isidro we have seen that the upper part is mummified, and in the back part we noticed that there was loss of skin and some vertebrae are missing. These damages could produced by being exposed or semi-submerged in some liquid. There are writings that indicate that he was initially buried in the ground and that a trickle passed over his grave when it rained. It is possible that the body had dehydrated and that when it rained later, it was damaged " , points out this forensic doctor.

Several kings had the body moved to ask for miracles, in fact one of the most striking aspects of the study is that a coin was found in its throat: "We believe that it is from the time of King Henry IV, of which there is also a visit to San Isidro in 1463".

In addition to his charity, he should not have gone unnoticed because Ana Patricia Moya believes that "he measured between 1.75 and 1.86 meters, at a time when the majority of the population measured between 1.50 and 1.60 meters" .

If we look at the surviving armor from the period, they weren't bulky or very tall.” Because the mummy's tissues are dehydrated, they cannot make estimates of its weight or how bulky it was.

Radiological examination on February 26. Archimadrid

With regard to the houses of death in San Isidro, Moya assures that they have not seen "signs of trauma, it has some signs of degeneration characteristic of aging but they are not very advanced and for which he surely did not have symptoms yet. The only thing What we have found to be an active disease are dental infections in three areas of the mouth, which often cause death without antibiotic treatment, even today," he explains.

Although they cannot ensure that he died of any other cause that was not recorded in his bones, such as a heart attack, encephalitis or appendicitis that affects soft tissues, there are writings that say that San Isidro was able to say goodbye to his relatives when he was feeling ill. so according to this forensic doctor, it does not appear that his death was from a sudden cause.

What they have seen in his bones would fit with the fact that he dedicated himself to agriculture: "We have been able to see incipient degenerative signs in the shoulder and clavicle area, and something in the hands, which we usually see in people who work more with their arms "Today, athletes frequently have them. They don't cause pain and there are people who don't even know they have them," says Moya, who considers that "they could be indicative that he was left-handed or that they were injuries derived from his occupation as a farmer ".

Facial reconstruction is one of the most striking aspects of this study.

Moya points out that since they did not carry out DNA analysis, it is an approximate reconstruction based on the scanner, which has allowed them to make a robot portrait: from the CT scan of the skull we have made a reproduction, we have printed it in 3D and that has been the structure.

By measurements in living populations, the thickness of the soft tissues in different places of the skull is known, which are placed with a modeling paste until it is finished with a standard paste.

This is what we call the neutral model," she explains.

The second phase, he adds, is more subjective: "if you have found out information about their ancestors, you can find out if they had blue or brown eyes or age them based on how old they were when they died. In the case of San Isidro we have opted for a hair dark that was not completely smooth, and because of an eye color more typical of the Mediterranean area where he was born".

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