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largely treated of these two branches of learning. In the present
work I must necessarily limit myself to giving the reader a general
view of these labours, by publishing his introductory notes to the
various books on anatomical subjects. I have added some extracts,
and such observations as are scattered incidentally through these
treatises, as serving to throw a light on Leonardo's scientific
attitude, besides having an interest for a wider circle than that of
specialists only.
VASARI expressly mentions Leonardo's anatomical studies, having had
occasion to examine the manuscript books which refer to them.
According to him Leonardo studied Anatomy in the companionship of
Marc Antonio della Torre "aiutato e scambievolmente
aiutando."--This learned Anatomist taught the science in the
universities first of Padua and then of Pavia, and at Pavia he and
Leonardo may have worked and studied together. We have no clue to
any exact dates, but in the year 1506 Marc Antonio della Torre seems
to have not yet left Padua. He was scarcely thirty years old when he
died in 1512, and his writings on anatomy have not only never been
published, but no manuscript copy of them is known to exist.
This is not the place to enlarge on the connection between Leonardo
and Marc Antonio della Torre. I may however observe that I have not
been able to discover in Leonardo's manuscripts on anatomy any
mention of his younger contemporary. The few quotations which occur
from writers on medicine--either of antiquity or of the middle ages
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