The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 845 pages of information about The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete.

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 845 pages of information about The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete.

This depicting of mine of the human body will be as clear to you as if you had the natural man before you; and the reason is that if you wish thoroughly to know the parts of man, anatomically, you—­or your eye—­require to see it from different aspects, considering it from below and from above and from its sides, turning it about and seeking the origin of each member; and in this way the natural anatomy is sufficient for your comprehension.  But you must understand that this amount of knowledge will not continue to satisfy you; seeing the very great confusion that must result from the combination of tissues, with veins, arteries, nerves, sinews, muscles, bones, and blood which, of itself, tinges every part the same colour.  And the veins, which discharge this blood, are not discerned by reason of their smallness.  Moreover integrity of the tissues, in the process of the investigating the parts within them, is inevitably destroyed, and their transparent substance being tinged with blood does not allow you to recognise the parts covered by them, from the similarity of their blood-stained hue; and you cannot know everything of the one without confusing and destroying the other.  Hence, some further anatomy drawings become necessary.  Of which you want three to give full knowledge of the veins and arteries, everything else being destroyed with the greatest care.  And three others to display the tissues; and three for the sinews and muscles and ligaments; and three for the bones and cartilages; and three for the anatomy of the bones, which have to be sawn to show which are hollow and which are not, which have marrow and which are spongy, and which are thick from the outside inwards, and which are thin.  And some are extremely thin in some parts and thick in others, and in some parts hollow or filled up with bone, or full of marrow, or spongy.  And all these conditions are sometimes found in one and the same bone, and in some bones none of them.  And three you must have for the woman, in which there is much that is mysterious by reason of the womb and the foetus.  Therefore by my drawings every part will be known to you, and all by means of demonstrations from three different points of view of each part; for when you have seen a limb from the front, with any muscles, sinews, or veins which take their rise from the opposite side, the same limb will be shown to you in a side view or from behind, exactly as if you had that same limb in your hand and were turning it from side to side until you had acquired a full comprehension of all you wished to know.  In the same way there will be put before you three or four demonstrations of each limb, from various points of view, so that you will be left with a true and complete knowledge of all you wish to learn of the human figure[Footnote 35:  Compare Pl.  CVII.  The original drawing at Windsor is 28 1/2 X 19 1/2 centimetres.  The upper figures are slightly washed with Indian ink.  On the back of this drawing is the text No. 1140.].

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The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.