INTRODUCTION

In the margin, in their proper places, we provide the summaries of the writings and the figures.

Therefore, for each volume, according to the science it treats, we turn to the help of a specialist. For the first (Anatomy - Sheets A) we received valuable assistance from Doctor Antonio Dionisi of Rome; for the present one, we are very grateful for the cooperation of Doctor Adolfo Villa of the Surgical Clinic of the University of Turin.

We shall not discourse upon the importance of the present volume. Leonardo predates his time by centuries, revealing unexpected wonders to the scholar ⁽⁴⁾.

Nor is the profound and subtle diligence of study, which appears here in the marvelous drawings and anatomical writings, restricted to this science alone. To all of us—who by intellectual necessity and the immense, ever-growing breadth of the scientific field are forced within the limits of a specialized study—the universality of his genius awakens an ineffable sense of admiration and astonishment. While he paints and models the most marvelous works that art can boast, sufficient to fill and celebrate the life of one man, he simultaneously—and with equal mastery—studies and writes of painting, architecture, philosophy, physics, chemistry, astronomy, mechanics, hydraulics, geology, geography, botany, zoology... and not superficially, not vaguely, but entering into diligent research, revealing new, profound laws and minute details, in addition to the anatomy we are currently publishing.

Of all this immense labor, incomprehensible within the short span of an active life such as Leonardo’s, various volumes have already been published; namely: six large volumes of the Manuscripts existing at the Institute of France, by

(4) We cite, for example: the studies and drawings of myology The study of the muscular system and osteology The study of the structure and function of bones, the comparisons of man with the monkey (Fol. 9 verso, page 63), the chapter "On the muscles that move the tongue" (Fol. 28 verso, page 173 and following) where, passing from the anatomical field to the physiological, and then to the philological The study of language in oral and written historical sources and idealistic, he gives us a wonderful page of thoughts and modern philosophy; and we further note the study on the crossing of the visual nerves (Fol. 35 recto, page 215).