How Did Leonardo Da Vinci Study Anatomy

Leonardo Da Vinci is arguably the most famous artist of all time having painted various works of popular spectacle such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. However, he is also probable the world’s exceptional anatomist. Da Vinci was studying anatomy and his findings were way ahead of his time and years before the beginnings of the scientific revolution. He was born in Vinci, Tuscany on the 15th of April 1452. He was the son of a Florentine Lawyer and grew up in Florence as an apprentice of Andrea Verrocchio. He began his study of anatomy around 1489 and “shown particular interest in the head and brain”. Anatomy seemed to be an ongoing fascination for Da Vinci for he continued to produce anatomical studies in brief but intense bursts. On May
According to Da Vinci’s notebooks that man had claimed that very shortly before the man had died “that he had lived for one hundred years without experiencing any physical failure other than weakness”. The man passed in the Santa Maria Nova in Florence without “giving no sign of any accident”. Da Vinci would have seen this a perfect opportunity to study the effect aging has on the human body. He produced multiple pages from the dissection of the centenarian and even coined the modern definition of coronary heart disease. Da Vinci concluded that the reason for the passing of the old man was the thickening of “tunic” of the artery [aorta] that provides the heart and the lower organs with blood. Thickening of the arterial wall is medically known today as Atherosclerosis and observed by Da Vinci in 1506. Along with the thickening of the arteries Da Vinci also describes the crumbling state of the man’s liver. Both of these things, along with the man’s enlarged spleen, can be observed in the drawing and in other sketches produced from the man’s dissection (fig. 9). Da Vinci, drawing and making notes from direct observation with such an eye for detail is able to convey the state of the organs he was examining. Cirrhosis in the man’s liver gives the liver in the sketch a withered appearance and speaks to the origin of the top half of the
The work shows planning and preparation in the medium of the work. It shows the skill and technique that one might expect from the cartoon of an artist trained in Florence. He was able to replicate what he saw from direct observation and so much so that the work gives clues to the source and the condition of the body he had dissected. He used his creativity and knowledge of philosophy and ancient text to fill in the gaps of what he did not know or could not observe. With this piece Da Vinci was finalizing his composition for a “painting” which is the human body and it stemmed from a desire to better understand the