Behold the face of Thomas Aquinas—"Beware the man of a single book"—as recreated from a computer-assisted analysis of his skull. The Italian friar, who lived 750 years ago, was imaged by Brazilian designer Cicero Morales, reports The National Catholic Register.
Speaking to the Register about the entire process, Moraes said: "The most challenging part was projecting the missing regions of the skull. Fortunately, we have tools for this, based on measurements taken from CT scans of living people. Thanks to this, it was possible to reconstruct the entire volume of the skull."
More interesting than his beatific chops is the manner of death, deduced from the same data: brain trauma followed by chronic subdural hematoma. Aquinas struck his head on a tree and died a few weeks later.
"A critical reading of the accounts of the last weeks of his life makes a strong case for cSDH: with the classic clinical history of a relatively minor head trauma, a period of lucidity, and then a gradual decline as the hematoma expands over several weeks. Aquinas was not ill prior to the head injury, and the violent collision with the tree on the Via Latina marked the beginning of his demise."
