Dissecting Leonardo's Anatomy
 

The Brain

Early anatomical studies On his early method of scientific study: "There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you will have no need of the experiment" (qtd. in MacCurdy 64). On Leonardo's fictional anatomy: "... he not only noted the perforation 'through which the visual power passes to the sensorium', but also the aperture though which 'the tears well up from the heart to the the eye, passing via the canal of the nose'" (Kemp 122).             On Leonardo's early conceptions of the brain and skull: "Leonardo has thus worked his own variation upon the traditional perceptual system, creating a fictitious brain which is adapted first and foremost to visual perception" (Kemp 119).                                         On the spine's similarity to a ship's mast: "But this convergence of muscles in the spine keeps it upright, just as the ropes of the shop support its mast; and the same ropes bound to the mast also support in part the edges of the ships to which they are joined" (qtd. in MacCurdy 103).