A new academic study claims to have uncovered what killed Simonetta Vespucci - the model for Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

Paolo Pozzilli, clinical research professor at Queen Mary University of London, said studying five different portraits of the aristocrat showed changes to her face suggesting she may have suffered from a fatal tumor and not tuberculosis as previously believed.

He said: “It’s also possible that the irregular eye positioning in the Birth of Venus - the ‘strabismus’ or squint later considered a trait of piety and beauty - may be caused by the pituitary tumor."

Researchers also studied letters which described her suddenly falling ill with what they said were "all symptoms of a rapidly expanding pituitary tumor" and "hypothesise" that a suspected rape by Alfonso II D'Aragona, Duke of Calabria, could have precipitated a medical emergency.

The controversy around the future of the Gelman collection has drawn record visitor numbers to its show at Mexico City's Museum of Modern Art.

More than 300,000 people have seen the exhibition of Mexican art ahead of this weekend when it closes and many of the works leave the country for a temporary tour.

It was the first time in two decades the 68 works, which included paintings by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's portrait of collector Natasha Gelman, had been on show in the country.

They will next appear in Spain at the new museum set up by banking giant Santander which now manages the collection after a convoluted business deal with its current owners, the Zambrano family, though a lawsuit has been launched to try to keep them in Mexico.

Among the visitors to the show was Mexican artist Mario Garcia Torres who wrote an open letter to Natasha Gelman on the e-flux website expressing his fears about "the uncertain future your collection has today."

The number of visitors to Seoul's National Museum of Korea in the first half of this year. That is up 39.7% on the same period last year and already more than its total visitor count in 2024.

Any disappointed French football fans wanting to wallow in past glories are advised to drop into Gagosian's Beverly Hills gallery from tomorrow.

That is when it unveils its new show of works by Douglas Gordon which includes his classic film, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, made with Philippe Parreno that follows the French footballer Zinedine Zidane over the course of a single match.

The Los Angeles show runs to August 22 and also includes several neon works.

1 - Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum has appointed Hannah Klemm its curator of art. She is currently a curator at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas in Austin and also worked at the Art Institute of Chicago.

2 - Michele De Lucchi has been appointed the first-ever creative director of Italy's Milan Triennale. Further announcements on planned projects and exhibitions next year will be made at a press conference in November.

3 - The Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge, Maryland, is closed after a break-in over the weekend. A spokesperson for the museum, dedicated to the life of the 19th-century antislavery campaigner, said donations had been stolen and a mural on the side of the building by Michael Rosato damaged.