The Anatomical Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci

by:  R. Kevin Alvey

Of all the men who contributed to the revival of artistic and intellectual achievement that was to be called the Renaissance, none were more remarkable than Leonardo da Vinci.  Recognized now as the "father" of the High Renaissance, he was a master of any discipline in which he practiced.  Others may have equaled him as an artist, but nobody else of his time possessed in such a high degree the curiosity about the physical world which is the foundation of modern science, combined with mastery in the arts of painting, drawing, sculpture, and even architecture (Keele and Blunt, 9).  While it is the paintings of Leonardo that have brought him fame over the years, the full range of his talent can best be seen in his drawings.  His many drawings and notes, at least the ones that have survived, have become the basis for the modern scientific illustration, especially important in the field of anatomy.  Leonardo's anatomical studies, while great works of art in themselves, were used not only as tools to aid in his artistic understanding of the human form, but also as a means of scientific exploration of human functions.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in the town of Vinci, Italy.  He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci, a public notary, and a young peasant girl named Caterina, about whom little is known.  From a very early age, Leonardo is said to have shown exceptional ability in geometry, music, and artistic expression (Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomical Drawings, 10).  Noticing this, Ser Piero took his son's drawings to Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence.  Verrocchio was so struck by Leonardo's brilliance that he immediately took him in as his apprentice, and by 1472, at the age of twenty, Leonardo had joined the painters' civic guild in Florence.  However, little more is known about the education and training of Leonardo da Vinci, and it is assumed by many that much of his learning came not from traditional sources, but from his personal observations and the practical application of his ideas (Leonardo:  Anatomical Drawings, 10).  Giorgio Vasari, the artist who was also the first modern historian of art, described Leonardo da Vinci as a "unique genetic mutation", and believed that "his genius was a gift from God" (Keele and Blunt, 11).  Furthermore, he believed that Leonardo's approach to the anatomy of the human body was significantly influenced by his own remarkable physical attributes.

During the time of the High Renaissance, the artist was primarily interested in the external details of the human form, while the anatomist was mainly concerned with the internal systems of the body.  These two seemingly different areas of study were unified as one by Leonardo da Vinci.  His anatomical drawings show a knowledge of the anatomy of human beings and animals, based on actual dissection, which exceeds that of his contemporaries in the medical profession (Keele and Blunt, 9).  Because of Leonardo's gifted artistic ability, he was able to observe these dissections, and describe what he saw not only in words, but in accurate scientific drawings.  In fact, a comment on one of his anatomical sketches states his belief that his drawings give "knowledge that is impossible for ancient or modern writers to convey without an infinitely tedious example and confused prolixity of writing and time" (Leonardo:  Anatomical Drawings, 6).

Thus, Leonardo's greatest contribution to anatomy lay in the creation of a system of drawing which enabled anatomists, and even modern-day physicians, to transmit their findings to students.  Leonardo introduced a system involving the presentation of four views, so that every angle of a subject could be shown at once.  He also introduced the technique of cross-sectional representation (Wallace, 105), which he used to display the systems of veins, arteries, and nerves, as well as many cross sectional skull studies.  His method began with close observation, followed by repeated testing of the observation from various viewpoints, and concluded with a drawing of the object so that all the world could understand with brief explanatory notes (Wallace, 103).  In his performance of anatomical dissection, Leonardo experienced the satisfaction of putting both his artistic and scientific principles into practice  (Leonardo:  Anatomical Drawings, 12).  As consumed as he was by curiosity and the art of investigation, he never believed in science for the sake of science.  Leonardo once said "From science is born creative action, which is of much more value."

Ultimately, it was Leonardo's intention to publish a scientific treatise on anatomy.  Despite his completion of over 600 folios, which contained thousands of drawings, he never did realize this dream.  Strangely enough, during his life, Leonardo never allowed his anatomical studies to be examined.  In fact, all of Leonardo's notes were written backwards to thwart the potential snoop.  It was not until his death in 1519 that the contents of his studio passed to his pupil, Francesco Melzi, and for the first time became open to inspection.

Leonardo da Vinci's earliest anatomical investigations focused on the nature of experience, and in particular, perspective experience.  From the start of his artistic career, his interests went far beyond what was necessary merely for artistic reasons.  Leonardo believed deeply in the scientific nature of painting, and thus, wished to understand not only the superficial aspects of the human form, but to have a complete understanding of every facet of the workings of the human body.  He believed "the good painter has two things to paint, that is, man and the intention of his mind"  (Clayton, Anatomy of Man 16).  But because Leonardo's early anatomical drawings, dating as far back as 1489, were based on medieval anatomical beliefs,  his initial efforts went no farther than speculations on the sites of the mental faculties  (Leonardo:  Anatomical Drawings  14).

During this period, Leonardo made purely descriptive anatomical illustrations based on his own observations and mastery of perspective.   Despite the fact that most of these drawings were completely wrong, the one aspect that overshadows their primary intent are Leonardo's series of skull drawings.  Alongside these illustrations of the human skull, the text is devoted mainly to discussion of the location of the center of the senses and vision within the skull.  However off-

based he was about his conclusions, what he did produce were extremely accurate cross-sectional representations of the skull based on actual human dissections.  By 1495, Leonardo felt he had achieved a full understanding of how experience could act as an interpreter between nature and art (Clayton, A Singular Vision  11).  Leonardo then abandoned his anatomical investigations for over ten years.

Leonardo's interest in anatomical investigation was revived by chance during one of his visits to the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.  This institution, located in Florence, was used by Leonardo and others as a bank and a repository of books and drawings.  During Leonardo's visit in the winter of 1507-1508, he witnessed the death of an old man.  Of this event, Leonardo said:

"an old man a few hours before his death told me that he had passed a hundred years, and that he did not feel any bodily deficiency other than weakness.  And thus while sitting on a bed in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, without any movement or sign of distress he passed away from his life.  And I made an anatomy of him in order to see the cause of so sweet a death.  This anatomy I described very diligently and with great ease because of the absence of fat and humors which much impede knowledge of the parts."  (Kelen  12)

The leanness of the man allowed Leonardo to compose his most complete record of a single dissection.  However, many of the resulting drawings were actually composed later from his notes in his studio in Milan.  Thus, many of these drawings reflected his belief of what he remembered seeing rather than what he saw in reality.  In fact, the drawings of this dissection are secondary to Leonardo's note, which contain the first mention of such things as "cirrhosis of the liver, arteriosclerosis, calcification of vessels, coronary vascular occlusion, and capillary vessels" (Clayton, Anatomy of Man 47).

Leonardo da Vinci's many later anatomical studies, concentrated in the four years from 1510 to 1513, reflected a newfound methodology.  Previously, his method had been to interpret what he saw in the light of what he knew, merely synthesizing his observations.  His new method was to first record what he saw, then investigate the functions of the observed form.  In essence, Leonardo now analyzed what he saw objectively rather than restricting his observations to the limits of his knowledge.  The number of dissections made by Leonardo da Vinci during this period of his life grew in number from two in 1508 to "more than ten" in 1509 to "more than thirty" by the end of his life (Clayton, A Singular Vision 20).

It was during this time that Leonardo composed one of his most famous anatomical drawings, Embryo in the Womb.  Although this drawing was faulty in some respects, it is in others so expertly drawn that it can still be used as an example in medical textbooks today (Keele and Blunt,  103).  While this drawing is considered to be the

culmination of Leonardo's marriage of observation and analysis, another topic of fascination, that of the heart, endured through the end of his anatomical investgations.  Leonardo "identified the auricles, described the movements of diastole and systole, and understood perfectly the functioning of the valves" (Clayton, Anatomy of Man  20).  In 1513, he moved to Rome, and two years later was accused by a German mirror maker named Giovanni degli Specchi of sacrilegious practices.  As a result, Leonardo was banned from doing anatomical investigations by Pope Leo X, and thus, his 28-year-long anatomical career came to an undignified end, just four years before his death.

Leonardo da Vinci was an artist who sought an understanding beyond superficial analysis.  He sought to understand every aspect of the universe.  Science was meant as a means of perfecting his art, but over the course of his lifetime, the scientist in Leonardo began to consume the artist.  In fact, Leonardo considered art to be a science, once calling it "the Queen of all sciences", which provided not only a means of obtaining knowledge, but of sharing that knowledge with the rest of the world.  As in every discipline in which he practiced, his anatomical studies represent a knowledge that was far in advance of his contemporaries.  At a time when society was trying to wake up from the Dark Ages, Leonardo da Vinci was a man who awoke early.

Annotated Bibliography

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