Leonardo da Vinci was a pioneer in the study of the human body. Intent on exploring and explaining every aspect of anatomy and physiology, he performed over thirty dissections of human cadavers and many more of animals. He is also among the greatest draftsmen ever to have lived, and his studies of skeletons, musculature, and other visible structures remain to this day largely unsurpassed in their lucidity. In addition to his anatomical drawings, Leonardo meticulously recorded his many findings on the pages of his notebooks with the hope of one day publishing a treatise on anatomy. Among the more than one thousand pages of these notebooks were a number of important discoveries that, had they been published, would have transformed Western understanding of biological sciences. But despite admiration by the likes of Benvenuto Cellini, Giorgio Vasari, and Albrecht Durer — who made a number of drawings from Leonardo's anatomical studies — the work was never completed and the drawings remained largely unpublished and little known until around 1900. Since the seventeenth century, the Royal Library at Windsor Castle has housed the world's most significant collection of Leonardo's surviving anatomical studies. Generously illustrated throughout, this volume presents ninety of the finest of these astonishing documents — the largest publication of Leonardo's anatomical drawings to date — accompanied by an informative discussion of their anatomical content and their significance in Leonardo's pioneering work.

Leonardo da Vinci was not only one of the leading artists of the Renaissance, he was also one of the greatest anatomists ever to have lived. He combined, to a unique degree, manual skill in dissection, analytical skill in understanding the structures he uncovered, and artistic skill in recording his results. Leonardo's campaign of human dissection carried out during 1510-11 was recorded on the pages of a manuscript now in the Print Room at Windsor Castle known as Anatomical Manuscript A. These are extensively annotated in Leonardo's distinctive mirrorwriting, which is translated here for the first time on the page. So that the unfolding of his thoughts can be followed by both the specialist and the general reader.