The Anatomical Drawings of Renaissance Man, Leonardo da Vinci

by Matthias Rascher, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/the_anatomical_drawings_of_renaissance_man_leonardo_da_vinci.html

By profession, Matthias Rascher teaches English and History at a High School in northern Bavaria, Germany. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twitter.

Leonardo da Vinci, the archetype of the Renaissance Man, received some formal training in the anatomy of the human body.

He regularly dissected human corpses and made very detailed drawings of muscles, tendons, the heart and vascular system, internal organs and the human skeleton.

A great number of these drawings can now be seen in the largest exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of the human body, “Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist,” at The Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace, London.

In this video, Senior Curator Martin Clayton explores three of these drawings and shows that Leonardo’s medical discoveries could have transformed the study of anatomy in Europe, had they not languished unpublished for centuries.

Clayton has also published his findings in “Nature“. And the BBC has looked into the question of just how accurate Leonardo’s anatomical drawings really were.

Bonus links:

• The Guardian has a fascinating story about Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, including his ‘to-do’ list.
• Here‘s a wonderful 360° panoramic view of Santa Maria delle Grazia in Milan with Leonardo’s “Last Supper”.