Book - Leonardo da Vinci - the anatomist (1930)
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McMurrich JP. Leonardo da Vinci - the anatomist. (1930) Carnegie institution of Washington, Williams & Wilkins Company, Baltimore.
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Leonardo da Vinci - The Anatomist
(1452-1519)
Carnegie Institution Of Washington Publication No. 411 (1930)
By
J. Playfair McMurrich
Professor of Anatomy, University of Toronto
Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, probably by himself. Royal Palace, Turin (Anderson)
Leonardo da Vinci
THE ANATOMIST
(1452-1519)
By The Williams & Wilkins Company, Baltimore
Table of Contents
Author’s Preface
Preface by George Sarton
Chapter II Anatomy from Galen to Leonardo
Chapter III Possible Literary Sources of Leonardo’s Anatomical Knowledge
Chapter IV Anatomical Illustration before Leonardo
Chapter V Fortunes and Friends
Chapter VI Leonardo’s Manuscripts, their Reproduction and his Projected Book
Chapter VII Leonardo’s Anatomical Methods
Chapter VIII General Anatomy and Physiology
Chapter IX Leonardo’s Canon of Proportions
Chapter XIII The Blood-vessels
Chapter XIV The Organs of Digestion
Chapter XV The Organs of Respiration
Chapter XVI The Excretory and Reproductive Organs
Chapter XVII The Nervous System
Chapter XVIII The Sense Organs
Chapter XX Comparative Anatomy
Author’s Preface
In attempting to evaluate even one only of the activities of so manyminded a man as Leonardo da Vinci, one is, perforce, led far afield beyond the topics that are of immediate concern, in order that one may endeavor to see these in their proper environment and perspective. The friends who have aided me in these extra-territorial studies have been many, too many to mention individually, but to one, Dr. George Sarton, I am especially indebted. It was at his suggestion that I undertook the study, of which what follows is the result, and throughout its progress his thorough knowledge and clear understanding of the history of mediaeval and Renaissance science have always been at my disposal. He also kindly undertook the preparation of the photographs required for the illustrations, many of these being taken from works in his own library, others from volumes in the Harvard Library and the Boston Medical Library.
To these two libraries I wish to express thanks for the courtesies afforded and I also desire to make grateful acknowledgments to the Library of the University of Toronto, the Toronto Public Reference Library, the Library of the British Museum, and the London Library for the opportunities and privileges granted for the study of the works of Leonardo in their possession. The Leonardo drawings have been reproduced from the facsimile editions enumerated in the bibliography at the end of this volume, except three of them derived from photographs of the firm D. Anderson of Rome. Some pre-Leonardian documents have been borrowed from the publications of Karl Sudhoff and Charles Singer, whose courtesy is appreciated. More specific acknowledgments will be found in the list of illustrations below. Finally I am deeply indebted to Dr. R. K. George for assistance in proof-reading and for the preparation of the index.
J. Playfair McMurrich
University of Toronto
December 16, 1929
Preface
It is always useful to place a work in its historical perspective. The reader’s interest in it is awakened or increased as soon as he knows its genesis and development. This preface is primarily meant to gratify such legitimate curiosity. The fact that I can not speak of the genesis of Dr. McMurrich’s work without speaking of my own studies will not be brought against me, I hope. It can not be helped.
When I was appointed Associate in the History of Science by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1918, I undertook to make a thorough study of Leonardo’s thought. 1 However, I soon realized that a proper appreciation of it would be impossible without a deep and accurate knowledge of mediaeval science. To measure Leonardo’s originality it was necessary to be able to distinguish the mediaeval elements which he had assimilated. But was it expedient to include these mediaeval investigations, which are almost endless, in a history of Leonardo’s thought? Was it wise to write a history of mediaeval science around his own personality? After all, however mediaeval Leonardo had remained, the Middle Ages were one thing and Leonardo was another. It was better not to mix the two stories. The example unconsciously given by the great French scholar, Pierre Duhem, was a good warning. His Etudes sur Leonard de Vinci (3 vols., Paris, 19061913) were really misnamed. Duhem devoted considerably more space to mediaeval than to Leonardian thought. This seemed to me a bad method. It would be at once simpler and more rigorous to make as complete an inventory of mediaeval knowledge as possible, studying each layer of it independently and in due succession. Thus w T ould we know how much knowledge each age had added to that of the preceding ones, and when Leonardo’s age would finally be reached, the analysis of his own thought would become relatively easy. I foolishly thought that the making of that inventory — the drawing of that intellectual map of the Middle Ages — would take only a couple of years. That was in 1918-19. I am writing this in August 1929, more than ten years later, and I know that many more years will elapse before the task is completed and Leonardo finally overtaken.
To return to the present work, I realized happily at the very beginning that there was a part of Leonardo’s activity, a major part, for which the investigation of mediaeval sources was relatively simpler and less essential, than was Leonardo’s anatomy. Whatever Leonardo had learned from books, it is clear that the mainspring of his anatomical knowledge was to be found in his own autopsies. In this field as opposed to others (e.g., mechanics, optics, geology) once that the need of direct observation had been really understood — and this was on the whole Leonardo’s outstanding contribution, the source of every one of his discoveries — the observations themselves were relatively easier. Anatomical facts are more tangible than geological and mechanical facts. It is not necessary to isolate them from others; they are already isolated. This does not mean that anatomical observations were easy, far from it, but the program of observation was more obvious in this field than in any other, and the harvest more abundant. Thus with regard to Leonardo’s anatomy, thfe general procedure might reasonably be reversed. Instead of studying the past first, and climbing up to Leonardo, century by century, year by year, it would be legitimate in this case to begin by investigating his drawings and comparing them with the anatomical realities. However, this could be done only by a professional anatomist. Leonardo’s drawings could not be understood nor their genuineness and correctness appreciated except by one thoroughly familiar with the objects represented. A theoretical knowledge of anatomy was in itself insufficient for such a task. The historian must be able to visualize the anatomical details which the artist interpreted — remember, a drawing is always an interpretation — he must be able to recall their very appearance under similar conditions.
1 Carnegie Inst. Wash. Year Book No. 18, 1919, 347-349,
This situation having been explained to the President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, he approached Dr. McMurrich, who kindly agreed to undertake this important share of the Leonardo project. This was very fortunate, for Dr. McMurrich is not only one of the leading anatomists of America, a man of considerable experience, but he has shown a lifelong interest in the history of anatomy. In him are happily blended the technical and historical qualifications, the scientific and artistic leanings, which are but too often dissociated, and yet which are equally essential for the making of a complete historian of science.
This was more than ten years ago. Many and heavy were the duties — scientific, educational, and administrative — heaped upon Dr. McMurrich’s shoulders, and to Leonardo he could but give his leisure hours. The Carnegie Institution was not impatient. It knew it was losing nothing by waiting a little longer, and that in the fulness of time the task which Dr. McMurrich had promised to undertake would be accomplished.
And here it is! No further introduction of it is needed, and this preface might end here. But the author will forgive me if I take advantage of his book to say a few words of the studies on the history of science which have been promoted by the Carnegie Institution. This is necessary because the activities of the Institution are so many and so diversified, that very few people realize what it has already done in our own field. Its publications on the History of Science, important as they are, are lost among many others, which are probably just as important if not more, but deal with other subjects.
The Institution’s first effort in that direction was to publish the Collected Mathematical Works of George William Hill (4 vols., 1907). Later two ancient catalogues of stars were carefully edited, Ptolemy’s, by C. H. F. Peters and E. B. Knobel (1915); Ulugh Beg’s, by Knobel alone (1917). A fundamental History of the Theory of Numbers was composed by L. E. Dickson (3 vols., 1919-23). Nearer to the present work is George W. Corner’s Anatomical Texts of the Earlier Middle Ages (1927). Finally I may be permitted to mention my own Introduction to the History of Science, of which volume 1, From Homer to Omar Khayyam, appeared in 1927; volume 2, From Rabbi ben Ezra to Roger Bacon, is almost ready to be printed; Volume 3, dealing with the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, will probably be ready in 1933. An assistant, Dr. A. Pogo, is preparing materials for Volume 4, to be devoted to the sixteenth century. It should be noted that while the volumes of my Introduction appear necessarily at distant intervals, they were all begun by me at the same time. That is, materials for these four volumes, and for many subsequent ones, have been systematically collected by me since 1911. A great many of these materials have been published, as they became available, in Isis, since 1913.
These explanations are not given solely for the sake of the Carnegie Institution, though it was worthwhile to bring into light a part of its abundant activity which is generally unknown. There is, I believe, a better reason for giving them. The reader will be helped by them to realize the existence of a new branch of knowledge, of an independent discipline, having its own unity, its own organization, its own methods, and deserving as well as any other to occupy the whole of a scholar’s attention and energy. How strange it is, that in this age of science, it should be considered perfectly natural for a man to dedicate all of his time to, say, American or Canadian history, and that hardly any are allowed to devote themselves with the same continuity to a subject which is far more difficult, because it is at once more complex and less standardized? And yet is not the History of Science the very core of the history of culture? How else can we measure man’s progress, except by the growth of his knowledge? Indeed the history of mankind is essentially the history of a gigantic struggle between light and darkness, between knowledge and ignorance. As the light gradually conquers the surrounding gloom, as science gradually destroys superstition, as rationality gradually replaces irrationality, and order, chaos, so— and not otherwise — does civilization increase. Just think of that and then remember that our universities provide for the study of every kind of history, except the very one which would enable us to understand the progress and the very nature of civilization.
The main trouble with our studies is not so much that they are neglected, but that they are considered fair game for any kind of amateurish efforts. This is of course a natural consequence of the fact that only a very few men are given an opportunity to engage in them as a profession. In so much as so few scientists have yet realized it, one could not repeat too often that the History of Science is itself a legitimate branch of science, that it is just as scientific as we make it, and that for it as for other branches, no good can ever be expected out of idle dilettantism or hasty book making. Whatever advance is made in our knowledge of it, will be due exclusively to honest and patient efforts, such as those made by Dr. McMurrich during the last ten years.
Nowhere does Leonardo’s peculiar genius appear more clearly than in these anatomical investigations. To use the author’s striking comparison “Vesalius was undoubtedly the founder of modern anatomy — Leonardo was his forerunner, a St. John crying in the wilderness.” Leonardo’s originality was due not only to his inherent genius, to the penetration and comprehensiveness of his mind, but also to his ignorance — I almost said, to his innocence. To speak of him as an Hellenist is ridiculous; he was not even a Latinist. We have evidence from his Manuscripts that his knowledge of Latin was very meager. It is probable that he had never made a systematic study of it in his youth; apparently he tried to make up for that deficiency in later years, but we all know that a man’s linguistic limits are largely determined before maturity, especially when his life is a busy one and when he has consecrated himself to a definite and inflexible purpose. Leonardo’s knowledge of Latin was that empirical knowledge which an intelligent Italian would easily obtain, in the quattrocento even more easily than now, because the Italian language was then so much nearer to its Latin origins. It was sufficient for simple needs, but utterly insufficient for abundant reading. Thus Leonardo was mercifully spared the oppressive load of that dialectical and empty learning which had accumulated since the ruins of ancient science and made true originality more and more difficult. To be sure, that learning was not wholly barren, but the little amount of gold which it contained, the timid attempts at experimentation, would filter through to such a man as Leonardo in more than one way. Such experimental knowledge did not need a learned language to be transmitted; nay, it would reach the botteghe of artists and craftsmen more directly than the cabinets of scholars. Thus the best of mediaeval science would be sure to reach Leonardo’s inquisitive mind, while the dross was kept out by the insuperable barrier of his ignorance.
And yet such is the strength and pervasiveness of tradition that in spite of his prophylactic ignorance and aloofness, Leonardo could not entirely escape its prejudices. The barrier was not insuperable after all. There is nothing to prove that he had read Galen. Of course he knew Galen and spoke of him even as most of our contemporaries speak of Einstein or Freud without ever having read them. The physiological knowledge which had been transmitted to him by Mondino, Chauliac, or Benedetti, or better still by the intermediary of his conversations with surgeons or brother craftsmen, that knowledge was purely Galenic. Galenic prejudices were part of the very atmosphere which he was breathing; they were beyond the need of scrutiny or dispute. And so it was that this keen observer saw things not always with his own eyes, but sometimes with those of Galen! The best example of this aberration is Leonardo’s reference to the heart’s septum as sievelike. Not only does it occur repeatedly in his notes, but he even drew a portion of the septum showing pores which do not exist. Galen’s triumphant dogmatism made even a Leonardo see the inexistent. But for this illusion which sidetracked him hopelessly, Leonardo might conceivably have discovered the circulation of the blood before Harvey, for he had as much anatomical and mechanical knowledge as was needed. He had all that was necessary to see the truth, except that in this particular case he was blinded by an overpowering prejudice.
One could not illustrate better the limitations of genius. A man of genius sees further than his fellowmen, further and more clearly, but for all that his range of vision is limited. Leonardo was an extraordinary man, yet he belonged to his environment — fifteenth century Italy — almost as completely as his humbler contemporaries. What else could we expect? This father of modern science was still in many respects a child of the Middle Ages.
This is very well proved in Dr. McMurrich’s memoir. He has admirably brought out not only the outstanding merits of Leonardo’s anatomical studies, their thoroughness and originality, but also their weaknesses, which had to be acknowledged, though they were almost unavoidable. Indeed his purpose was not to write a panegyric but to make a conscientious analysis of Leonardo’s anatomy. He shows clearly how much of it was truly new and prophetic of our modern knowledge, but he also shows and with equal clearness that much of it was less original, or even entirely conventional and wrong. Leonardo was the greatest scientist of his time, but he was imperfect and fallible, even as the greatest scientists of our own time, and for that matter, of all times. One of the main lessons that the History of Science can teach us is this very one — the continual growth of man, and his continual, if slowly decreasing, imperfection.
To conclude I wish to express in the author’s name as well as in my own, our deep gratitude to the Institution, whose enlightened generosity encouraged the preparation of this work and made its publication possible.
George Sarton
Cambridge, Massachusetts,
August 1929
Leonardo da Vinci
THE ANATOMIST (1452-1519)
Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim Credebat libris: ncque, si male gesserat usquam Decurrens alio, ncque si bene — quo fit , ut omnis Votiva pateat veluti descripia tabella,
Vita senis.
Horace. Sat. II, I, 30.
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Reference: McMurrich JP. Leonardo da Vinci - the anatomist. (1930) Carnegie institution of Washington, Williams & Wilkins Company, Baltimore.
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