361.

OF [CHANGE OF] ATTITUDE.

The pit of the throat is over the feet, and by throwing one arm forward the pit of the throat is thrown off that foot.  And if the leg is thrown forward the pit of the throat is thrown forward; and. so it varies in every attitude.

362.

OF PAINTING.

Indicate which are the muscles, and which the tendons, which become prominent or retreat in the different movements of each limb; or which do neither [but are passive].  And remember that these indications of action are of the first importance and necessity in any painter or sculptor who professes to be a master &c.

And indicate the same in a child, and from birth to decrepitude at every stage of its life; as infancy, childhood, boyhood, youth &c.

And in each express the alterations in the limbs and joints, which swell and which grow thinner.

363.

O Anatomical Painter! beware lest the too strong indication of the bones, sinews and muscles, be the cause of your becoming wooden in your painting by your wish to make your nude figures display all their feeling.  Therefore, in endeavouring to remedy this, look in what manner the muscles clothe or cover their bones in old or lean persons; and besides this, observe the rule as to how these same muscles fill up the spaces of the surface that extend between them, which are the muscles which never lose their prominence in any amount of fatness; and which too are the muscles of which the attachments are lost to sight in the very least plumpness.  And in many cases several muscles look like one single muscle in the increase of fat; and in many cases, in growing lean or old, one single muscle divides into several muscles.  And in this treatise, each in its place, all their peculiarities will be explained—­and particularly as to the spaces between the joints of each limb &c.  Again, do not fail [to observe] the variations in the forms of the above mentioned muscles, round and about the joints of the limbs of any animal, as caused by the diversity of the motions of each limb; for on some side of those joints the prominence of these muscles is wholly lost in the increase or diminution of the flesh of which these muscles are composed, &c.

[Footnote:  DE ROSSI remarks on this chapter, in the Roman edition of the Trattato, p. 504:  “Non in questo luogo solo, ma in altri ancora osservera il lettore, che Lionardo va fungendo quelli che fanno abuso della loro dottrina anatomica, e sicuramente con cio ha in mira il suo rivale Bonarroti, che di anatomia facea tanta pompa.”  Note, that Leonardo wrote this passage in Rome, probably under the immediate impression of MICHAELANGELO’S paintings in the Sistine Chapel and of RAPHAEL’S Isaiah in Sant’ Agostino.]

364.

OF THE DIFFERENT MEASUREMENTS OF BOYS AND MEN.

There is a great difference in the length between the joints in men and boys for, in man, from the top of the shoulder [by the neck] to the elbow, and from the elbow to the tip of the thumb and from one shoulder to the other, is in each instance two heads, while in a boy it is but one because Nature constructs in us the mass which is the home of the intellect, before forming that which contains the vital elements.