The Human Body

Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical studies — the drawings that revolutionized our understanding of the human body four centuries before modern medical imaging. Based on over thirty dissections Leonardo performed himself, these sheets reveal the musculature, skeleton, cardiovascular system, and internal organs with a precision and beauty that no anatomist had achieved before and few have matched since. The famous Vitruvian Man is only the beginning: Leonardo drew the heart's valves, the fetus in the womb, the mechanics of facial expression, and the architecture of the skull with equal mastery. These are simultaneously scientific documents of the highest order and drawings of extraordinary artistic power — each line serving both truth and beauty, as Leonardo believed all knowledge should.