Anthropometric comparison of the idealized youth and hideous old man of Leonardo's profile drawings

The aim of this study is to compare the old and ugly with the young and beautiful in Leonardo's profile drawings using soft tissue anthropometry.Thirty-one of Leonardo's profile drawings and portraits of the lateral view were collected and scanned. Among the 29, 9 young and 20 hideous old man scans had a measurable nasion-subnasale (n-sn) distance, and 49 anthropometric items (43 distances and 6 angles) were used for measurement as relative distances to the n-sn distance.The measured distances or angles did not differ significantly between the young and old in the 39 anthropometric items. However, the remaining 10 items were statistically significant. The young group had a significantly greater (P < 0.05) upper face height (n-stomion [sto]), nasolabial angle, and upper lip height (sn-sto) compared with the old group. However, the supraorbital depth (glabella-tragion), mandible height (sto-gnathion), nasal bridge height (n-pronasale), cutaneous lower lip height (labiale inferius-sublabiale), ear length (superaurale-subaurale), Rickett line-upper lip distance, and facial inclination were significantly greater (P < 0.05) in the old group compared with the young group.The difference of soft tissue cephalometric results between the young and old subjects can be the index in rejuvenating surgeries.