The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — CompleteLeonardo, da Vinci
Science
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete
Leonardo, da Vinci
Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519 -- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
Remove by degrees all the parts of the front of a man in making your
dissection, till you come to the bones. Description of the parts of
the bust and of their motions.
808.
Give the anatomy of the leg up to the hip, in all views and in every
action and in every state; veins, arteries, nerves, sinews and
muscles, skin and bones; then the bones in sections to show the
thickness of the bones.
[Footnote: A straightened leg in profile is sketched by the side of
this text.]
On corpulency and leanness (809-811).
809.
Make the rule and give the measurement of each muscle, and give the
reasons of all their functions, and in which way they work and what
makes them work &c.
[4] First draw the spine of the back; then clothe it by degrees, one
after the other, with each of its muscles and put in the nerves and
arteries and veins to each muscle by itself; and besides these note
the vertebrae to which they are attached; which of the intestines
come in contact with them; and which bones and other organs &c.
The most prominent parts of lean people are most prominent in the
muscular, and equally so in fat persons. But concerning the
difference in the forms of the muscles in fat persons as compared
with muscular persons, it shall be described below.
[Footnote: The two drawings given on Pl. CVIII no. 1 come between
lines 3 and 4. A good and very early copy of this drawing without
the written text exists in the collection of drawings belonging to
Christ's College Oxford, where it is attributed to Leonardo.]
810.
Describe which muscles disappear in growing fat, and which become
visible in growing lean.
And observe that that part which on the surface of a fat person is
most concave, when he grows lean becomes more prominent.
Where the muscles separate one from another you must give profiles
and where they coalesce ...
811.
OF THE HUMAN FIGURE.
Which is the part in man, which, as he grows fatter, never gains
flesh?
Or what part which as a man grows lean never falls away with a too
perceptible diminution? And among the parts which grow fat which is
that which grows fattest?
Among those which grow lean which is that which grows leanest?
In very strong men which are the muscles which are thickest and most
prominent?
In your anatomy you must represent all the stages of the limbs from
man's creation to his death, and then till the death of the bone;
and which part of him is first decayed and which is preserved the
longest.
And in the same way of extreme leanness and extreme fatness.
The divisions of the head (812. 813).
812.
ANATOMY.
There are eleven elementary tissues:-- Cartilage, bones, nerves,
veins, arteries, fascia, ligament and sinews, skin, muscle and fat.
OF THE HEAD.
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