The Anatomical Exploration of Leonardo da Vinci: A Mini-Essay

     There is no question that Leonardo da Vinci was a revolutionary man, from his redoubtable artwork to his drafting of helicopter and submarine prototypes centuries before their actual inventions. In 1503, the great thinker added an additional element to his vast repertoire of innovations: exploration of the human anatomy.[1] Allowed access to the unclaimed corpses at a Florentine hospital, da Vinci began a long process of dissecting and artistically cataloguing the inner workings of the body. It was an arduous and unpleasant task, especially in an era without electric lights and refrigeration, and one which held significant consequences if his surreptitious contract with the hospital was discovered by the Catholic Church and its notorious Inquisition. Because the human body was considered a sacred entity by religious standards, the process of scientifically dismembering and scrutinizing it organs was a blasphemous deed and grounds for trial and persecution.[2] Although da Vinci was no stranger to religious prosecution – in 1476, he was accused of sexual relations with the male prostitute Jacopo Saltarelli – the potential for punishment did not diminish his natural curiosity and the artist utilized his efforts to craft a detailed sketchbook of the human body.[3] In fact, historian Sherwin Nuland reveals that this text, despite it somewhat flawed understandings in comparison to our current medical knowledge, was the first to show anatomy in a purely realistic stance, rather than the diagrammatic and symbolic renditions in centuries prior.[4]

Works Referenced

Friedman, David. A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis. New York: The Free Press, 2001.

Nuland, Sherwin. Leonardo da Vinci. New York: Penguin Books, 2005.

O’Malley, Charles. Introduction. Leonardo on the Human Body. New York: Dover Publications, 1983. 13-35.
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[1] O’Malley, 21-24.
[2] O’Malley, 22-23.
[3] Friedman, 59-64.
[4] Nuland, 165-66.