Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 148

LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519) Tabula anatomica Leonardi da Vinci. Sumtibus Heroldi et Wahlstabii 1830 [5] pp., 1 plate. 32.8 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 144

This tall, slender volume contains but one plate, representing a male and female engaged in sexual intercourse. Both individuals are cut in a plane through the median line from front to back and from the shoulders down to the lower end of the abdominal cavity. There are also three other anatomical figures on the plate: one pictures the digestive organs, another the male genitalia, and the third a male torso. All are accompanied by notes in Leonardo's nearly indecipherable mirror writing. The drawing is believed to have been done around 1493 and is among the very few anatomical studies Leonardo did during this period. It is one of the earliest of his drawings to be reproduced in facsimile and was engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi (fl. 1800) for John Chamberlaine (1745-1812) who included it in his Imitations of original designs by Leonardo da Vinci in 1796.

Cited references: Cushing L164; Osler 513; Waller 9988

Gift of John Martin, M.D.