Charles D. O'Malley, J. B. Saunders: Leonardo da Vinci on the Human Body

Leonardo's drawings are the finest integration of the arts of anatomy and í11ustration ever achieved, and this is the definitive, most complete collection currently in print. It is a book that a11 may enjoy, from the curious layman to the expert medical professional to the art connoisseur. Prior to this landmark work, no editor had attempted to arrange Leonardo's notebooks so as to indicate the full extent of his anatomical studies or to order them according to the systems of the body. Noted scholars O'Malley and Saunders have performed this service, cogently translating Leonardo's anatomical notes and adding a valuable history and extensive commentary.
The delicacy, strength, perseverance, and grace of this scientific and artistic man of genius is announced even in his signature on the opening leaf of this volume. It prepares one for the wonders to follow: stunning, precise drawings that have, in many cases, a three-dimensional quality. Leonardo introduced the technique of cross-sectional representation and also depicted his subjects from four aspects, as though the viewer were able to walk completely around them. Although anatomical study was in its infancy when Leonardo worked, and he himself began as an amateur, he drew, wherever possible, from animal and human dissections, and his remarkable powers of observation enabled him to exactly capture physical realities and to make what is, in effect, the first engineering study of the body.