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Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Sketches of the intestines, scapels and hooks for dissection, and notes; Miscellaneous notes and anatomical sketches c.1508-10

Recto: Pen and ink and black chalk. Verso: Pen and ink | 32.0 x 22.1 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 919070

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  • Recto: A man rising from the ground; the intestines & vessels incl. portal veins; drawings of scalpels and hooks for dissection; an eye; notes on the constitution of man & on rising from the ground.

    Verso: The skull, nervous system & vessels, especially with relation to the eyes; diagrams of maternal & foetal blood vessels; many notes.

    The layout of the notes demonstrates that the sheet was already torn before Leonardo started to compile them. It is a remarkable compendium of subjects and literary styles: lists and memoranda, anatomical descriptions, and an evocative account of the rigours of dissection. The blocks of notes are untidy, and rough lines connect the passages as Leonardo repeatedly runs out of space and continues on another part of the sheet.

    The sketchy drawings deal with the cardiovascular system (including a detail of the supposed connections between the pelvic and umbilical vessels in mother and child, cf. 919046v), and with the nervous system. The densest drawing shows the brain with the spinal cord down to the lumbosacral plexus, and several pairs of cranial nerves including the vagus nerves down to the recurrent laryngeal nerves. The other neurological sketch, to the right, is odd in that it shows the nerves connected to the cavities of the ventricles as if they were all composed of one substance. This may be Leonardo’s last attempt to relate the nervous system directly to the form of the ventricles: in 912602 they are independent structures.

    But it is the miscellany of notes that is the most remarkable aspect of the sheet, and only a sample can be given here. Most celebrated is Leonardo’s description of the difficulties of dissection; the lists of items suggests that he was gathering possessions ready for a journey:

    "Though you may have a love for such things, you will perhaps be impeded by your stomach; and if this does not impede you, you will perhaps be impeded by the fear of living through the night hours in the company of quartered and flayed corpses, fearful to behold. And if this does not impede you, perhaps you will lack the good draughtsmanship which such a depiction requires; and even if you have skill in drawing, it may not be accompanied by a knowledge of perspective; and if it were so accompanied, you may lack the methods of geometrical demonstration and of calculating the forces and strengths of muscles; or perhaps you will lack patience so that you will not be diligent. Whether all these things were found in me or not, the 120 books composed by me will give the verdict, yes or no. In these I have been impeded neither by avarice nor negligence, but only by time. Farewell.

    Have Avicenna translated. ‘On the Utilities’.

    Spectacles with case, firestick, fork, bistoury, charcoal, boards, sheets of paper, chalk, white, wax, forceps, pane of glass, fine-tooth bone saw, scalpel, inkhorn, pen-knife. Zerbi, and Agnolo Benedetti. Get hold of a skull. Nutmeg.

    Observe the holes in the substance of the brain, where there are more or less of them.

    Describe the tongue of the woodpecker and the jaw of the crocodile.

    Give the measurement of the dead using his finger [as a unit].

    The book ‘On Mechanical Science’ precedes that ‘On the Utilities’. Get your books on anatomy bound. Boots, stockings, comb, towel, shirts, shoe-laces, shoes, pen-knife, pens, a skin for the chest, gloves, wrapping paper, charcoal.

    Mental matters that have not passed through the senso comune are vain and they beget nothing but the prejudiced truth. And because such discourses arise from poverty of wit, such reasoners are always poor, and if they are born rich they will die poor in old age because it seems that Nature revenges herself on those who want to work miracles, so that they have less than quieter men. And those who want to grow rich in a day live for a long time in great poverty, as happens, and will happen to eternity – the alchemists, searchers after the creation of gold and silver, and those engineers who want dead water to give itself moving life with perpetual motion, and the supreme fool, the necromancer and enchanter."

    Text from M. Clayton and R. Philo, Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist, London 2012
    Provenance

    Bequeathed to Francesco Melzi; from whose heirs purchased by Pompeo Leoni, c.1582-90; Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, by 1630; Probably acquired by Charles II; Royal Collection by 1690

  • Medium and techniques

    Recto: Pen and ink and black chalk. Verso: Pen and ink

    Measurements

    32.0 x 22.1 cm (sheet of paper)

    Markings

    watermark: Bull's head [-]


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