STUDY ON FOLIOS A OF THE "ANATOMY"

...the progress he brought to many of these sciences, he was the most splendid proof of the power that science gives to art, because he left behind only masterpieces, and in his Treatise on Painting original: "Trattato della pittura" he reveals his secret to everyone: knowing how to see ⁴). It is his intervention, his intuition, and his learned curiosity in anatomy and in Biology, that we must attempt to characterize here. I say in Biology, because Leonardo da Vinci did not occupy himself solely with the anatomy of man and animals, but touched upon all the most diverse questions relating to the study of living beings: to botany The scientific study of plants. ⁵), to paleontology The study of ancient life through fossils. or the science of fossils, to zoology, to physiology, and finally to animal anatomy properly so called.

Among these latter sciences, of which not even the names existed in his time, paleontology is certainly the most surprising and memorable. Leonardo da Vinci was the first to seek something other than a legend or a fable to explain the nature of petrified fish; three centuries ahead of the scholars of his time, he dared to affirm that these were not the first attempts of some supposed "creative force" to give birth to living forms, but rather organic remains representing extinct forms that lived in earlier ages. He argued that their petrification was produced by the silt deposited at the bottom of the waters, which gradually permeated these remains. It was not until the end of the last century that this character and significance of fossils were definitively established in a manner consistent with the ideas of Leonardo da Vinci, who was thus the precursor to Cuvier Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) was a French naturalist and a foundational figure in comparative anatomy and paleontology..

His observations on the flight of birds, on the gait of man and animals, on sight, on the functions of the nervous system, and furthermore on the functions of reproduction ⁶), all show that Leonardo da Vinci undertook the study of living beings not only as an artist who wants to understand external forms, but also and above all as a philosopher burning with the desire to penetrate the mechanism of the most intimate functions and the relationships of the deepest organs. And this we shall see—

4. Yves Guyot, Art and Science original: "l'Art et la Science" (Scientific Review original: "Revue scientifique", July 30, 1887).
5. For botany, see L. Courajod and Ch. Ravaisson-Mollien, Conjectures concerning a marble bust of Beatrice d’Este original: "Conjectures à propos d'un buste en marbre de Béatrix d'Este" and Study on the botanical knowledge of Leonardo da Vinci original: "Étude sur les connaissances botaniques de Léonard de Vinci" (Gazette of Fine Arts original: "Gazette des beaux-arts", October 1877). From a broader perspective: G. Séailles, Leonardo da Vinci, the artist and the scholar original: "Léonard de Vinci, l'artiste et le savant". Paris, 1892.
6. Mathias-Duval, A fifteenth-century biologist: Leonardo da Vinci original: "Un biologiste du quinzième siècle : Léonard de Vinci" (Scientific Review original: "Revue scientifique", December 7, 1889).