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.

The Bull and its allies with horns and without upper incisors as the Buffalo, Stag Fallow Deer, Wild Goat, Swine, Goat, wild Goats Muskdeers, Chamois, Giraffe.

817.

Describe the various forms of the intestines of the human species, of apes and such like.  Then, in what way the leonine species differ, and then the bovine, and finally birds; and arrange this description after the manner of a disquisition.

Miscellaneous notes on the study of Zoology (818-821).

818.

Procure the placenta of a calf when it is born and observe the form of the cotyledons, if their cotyledons are male or female.

819.

Describe the tongue of the woodpecker and the jaw of the crocodile.

820.

Of the flight of the 4th kind of butterflies that consume winged ants.  Of the three principal positions of the wings of birds in downward flight.

[Footnote:  A passing allusion is all I can here permit myself to Leonardo’s elaborate researches into the flight of birds.  Compare the observations on this subject in the Introduction to section XVIII and in the Bibliography of Manuscripts at the end of the work.]

821.

Of the way in which the tail of a fish acts in propelling the fish; as in the eel, snake and leech.

[Footnote:  A sketch of a fish, swimming upwards is in the original, inserted above this text.—­Compare No. 1114.]

Comparative study of the structure of bones and of the action of muscles (822-826).

822.

OF THE PALM OF THE HAND.

Then I will discourse of the hands of each animal to show in what they vary; as in the bear, which has the ligatures of the sinews of the toes joined above the instep.

823.

A second demonstration inserted between anatomy and [the treatise on] the living being.

You will represent here for a comparison, the legs of a frog, which have a great resemblance to the legs of man, both in the bones and in the muscles.  Then, in continuation, the hind legs of the hare, which are very muscular, with strong active muscles, because they are not encumbered with fat.

[Footnote:  This text is written by the side of a drawing in black chalk of a nude male figure, but there is no connection between the sketch and the text.]

824.

Here I make a note to demonstrate the difference there is between man and the horse and in the same way with other animals.  And first I will begin with the bones, and then will go on to all the muscles which spring from the bones without tendons and end in them in the same way, and then go on to those which start with a single tendon at one end.

[Footnote:  See Pl.  CVIII, No. 2.]

825.

Note on the bendings of joints and in what way the flesh grows upon them in their flexions or extensions; and of this most important study write a separate treatise:  in the description of the movements of animals with four feet; among which is man, who likewise in his infancy crawls on all fours.

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