Describe the jaw of a crocodile’: Leonardo da Vinci’s Animal Anatomies
Lecture by Martin Clayton
Given by The Courtauld and the Leonardo da Vinci Society on May 9, 2024
Abstract: Leonardo’s anatomical work was the most accomplished of his many scientific studies. Like all his research, it combined traditional beliefs with acute direct observation, including the dissection of up to thirty human cadavers. But Leonardo also studied and dissected animals at many points of his career. His subjects included horses, bears, monkeys, frogs, dogs and oxen – as surrogates for human material, as independent subjects of study, and on occasion to compare explicitly human and animal anatomy. Though it is challenging to identify any overarching methodology in these studies, and even harder to detect any lasting ‘influence’, this is typical of Leonardo’s scientific studies. The drawings and notes on animal anatomy can therefore be seen as a case study of his aims in anatomy and his scientific methods overall.
Martin Clayton has worked in the Print Room at Windsor Castle since 1990, and from 2013 as Head of Prints and Drawings for Royal Collection Trust.
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Top Image: Leonardo da Vinci, The anatomy of a bear’s foot c.1488-90 – Wikimedia Commons
Describe the jaw of a crocodile’: Leonardo da Vinci’s Animal Anatomies
Lecture by Martin Clayton
Given by The Courtauld and the Leonardo da Vinci Society on May 9, 2024
Abstract: Leonardo’s anatomical work was the most accomplished of his many scientific studies. Like all his research, it combined traditional beliefs with acute direct observation, including the dissection of up to thirty human cadavers. But Leonardo also studied and dissected animals at many points of his career. His subjects included horses, bears, monkeys, frogs, dogs and oxen – as surrogates for human material, as independent subjects of study, and on occasion to compare explicitly human and animal anatomy. Though it is challenging to identify any overarching methodology in these studies, and even harder to detect any lasting ‘influence’, this is typical of Leonardo’s scientific studies. The drawings and notes on animal anatomy can therefore be seen as a case study of his aims in anatomy and his scientific methods overall.
Martin Clayton has worked in the Print Room at Windsor Castle since 1990, and from 2013 as Head of Prints and Drawings for Royal Collection Trust.
Top Image: Leonardo da Vinci, The anatomy of a bear’s foot c.1488-90 – Wikimedia Commons
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