:01:44. > :01:47.behind thousands of pages of drawings and notes including a
:01:47. > :01:52.series of startlingly accurate anatomical sketches that lay
:01:52. > :01:54.undiscovered for hundreds of years. To coincide with this year 's
:01:54. > :01:58.Edinburgh International Festival a new exhibition at the Queen 's
:01:58. > :02:04.Gallery at the Palace of Holyrood shows his exquisite studies
:02:04. > :02:07.alongside state-of-the-art modern medical imagery revealing just how
:02:07. > :02:15.close this Renaissance genius got to the truth that lies beneath the
:02:15. > :02:19.skin. He shines out as somebody who made
:02:19. > :02:26.enormous strides in his field. Thinking as an engineer, trying to
:02:26. > :02:30.understand the mechanism of the body. It is absolutely accurate.
:02:30. > :02:33.find it quite poetic he has used movement to illustrate something
:02:33. > :02:43.anatomical. It gives you a depth to the drawings which is technically
:02:43. > :02:47.
:02:47. > :02:51.Vinci as a painter, but for the majority of his life he was also a
:02:51. > :02:55.scientist designing robots, studying the property of water, endeavouring
:02:55. > :03:03.to understand the secrets of light, but the scientific field in which he
:03:03. > :03:07.most excelled was that of human anatomy. He first began to research
:03:07. > :03:14.the human body to help him keep his paintings as true to nature as
:03:14. > :03:21.possible. But the project soon took on a life of its own, when he filled
:03:21. > :03:25.hundreds of pages of his notebooks with detailed sketches. His aim was
:03:26. > :03:34.always to publish an illustrated treaty on the human body. But
:03:34. > :03:40.tragically he never did. Today all of his notebooks are
:03:40. > :03:43.scattered right across the world. And perhaps surprisingly almost all
:03:43. > :03:49.of the anatomical ones are amongst the Royal collection 's greatest
:03:49. > :03:52.treasures at Windsor Castle. The weird thing about them is for
:03:52. > :03:56.hundreds of years the fruits of his research were essentially lost.
:03:56. > :04:01.There is a wonderful story that the drawings languished for a long time
:04:01. > :04:07.in a royal bureau, until the wife of George II, Queen Caroline, chanced
:04:07. > :04:13.upon them. The reasons why they ended up in the Royal collection are
:04:13. > :04:20.slightly complicated. Towards the end of the 16th century the sculptor
:04:20. > :04:24.Pompeo Leoni bought a load of his papers and carved up, sometimes
:04:24. > :04:31.literally, into different albums, including one that consist of about
:04:31. > :04:40.600 sheets. This was probably acquired by Charles II sometimes
:04:40. > :04:46.after the Civil War. Curator Martin Clayton is allowing me a rare
:04:46. > :04:49.glimpse of these delicate works here at Windsor Castle. Before they are
:04:49. > :04:56.packed away and transported to the exhibition in Edinburgh.
:04:56. > :05:00.Did people in his lifetime know about the anatomical drawings?
:05:00. > :05:06.that it is not the same as understanding their content. -- but
:05:06. > :05:09.it is not the same. Until anatomists came along in the 18th century,
:05:09. > :05:14.nobody really understood the content of this material, they knew there
:05:14. > :05:17.were impressive but they did not know why. There can be no other
:05:18. > :05:27.scientist whose work was as profoundly insightful as his was,
:05:27. > :05:31.that has had so little impact on his chosen field. Martin has selected
:05:31. > :05:40.for different drawings from the netbooks to give an overview of his
:05:40. > :05:45.anatomical career -- notebooks. The first one dates from 1489. What is
:05:45. > :05:50.astonishing is how beautiful the presentation is, to take the front
:05:50. > :06:00.of one half and juxstapose the two sides say you can see the depth
:06:00. > :06:00.
:06:00. > :06:07.interlacing to the searches features is a brilliant demonstration.
:06:07. > :06:12.my batch I find it hard to get my head around the fact he drew this,
:06:12. > :06:16.he did touch this paper. This is from the spring of 15 oh wait, he
:06:16. > :06:26.describes observing the death of the centenarian performing a
:06:26. > :06:29.
:06:29. > :06:38.post-mortem. The old man, a few hours before his death. Why does he
:06:38. > :06:46.use the writing? It was easier.If we fast forward two years we find
:06:46. > :06:50.this kind of sheet. This is from 1510, 1511, a sequence of
:06:50. > :06:55.illustrations, deeper and deeper as he takes away individual muscles.
:06:55. > :06:59.The density of observation and the quality of presentation you see is a
:06:59. > :07:04.different order compared with what went before.
:07:04. > :07:08.This final image is one of the most famous drawings he produced. It is
:07:08. > :07:13.one of the few sheets in which he uses colour, the red chalk leaps out
:07:13. > :07:20.at you from the page. That red, the startling use of red, gives the
:07:20. > :07:29.foetus a sense of life, that is possibly lacking in some of the
:07:29. > :07:34.Perhaps I am feeling especially susceptible at the moment because I
:07:34. > :07:38.am about to become a father for the first time but that red chalk
:07:38. > :07:41.drawing of a foetus curled up in the womb, such a ravishing, heart
:07:41. > :07:47.stopping thing, seems to wriggle before your eyes and every single
:07:47. > :07:51.one of those sheet is similarly animated by the alacrity of his
:07:51. > :07:54.thoughts because each one jostles and teams with observations and
:07:54. > :08:04.ideas and reflections, a bit like the fossilised remains of somebody's
:08:04. > :08:12.
:08:12. > :08:17.synapses firing on all cylinders now be among the treasures at
:08:17. > :08:22.Windsor Castle, but the first regatta work on them here in Milan.
:08:22. > :08:26.-- but he first began work on them. He came to the city as a fully
:08:26. > :08:32.fledged artist around 1482 and the years he spent in this part of Italy
:08:32. > :08:35.would prove crucial. He arrived here to work at the Court
:08:35. > :08:45.of Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of Milan whose nickname was Il Moro on
:08:45. > :08:46.
:08:46. > :08:49.account of his, Jim. -- his complexion. Leonardo arrived
:08:49. > :08:56.brandishing a musical instrument which he had fashioned to resemble a
:08:56. > :09:02.horsey skull. -- horse's goal. It was an advertisement for his
:09:02. > :09:05.ingenuity in different talents. Working for Ludovico Sforza gave him
:09:05. > :09:13.the freedom to try his hand at many different things, from architect
:09:13. > :09:18.juju engineering. -- from architecture to engineering.
:09:18. > :09:24.This library houses his biggest collection of mechanical drawings in
:09:24. > :09:29.the world. In bold beneath the streets of Milan the Codex
:09:30. > :09:34.Atlanticus is made up of 1000 sheets of his netbook. They cover a range
:09:34. > :09:40.of staggering subjects, from military weapons to canal system.
:09:40. > :09:46.There is even a draft of the letter Leonardo rate to Ludovico Sforza to
:09:46. > :09:55.get his job. -- wrote. I wonder if you could tell
:09:55. > :10:05.us what he is saying. For example, he feels he is good at building
:10:05. > :10:07.
:10:07. > :10:13.bridges. I can build bridges, light and strong. Does he talk about being
:10:13. > :10:20.an artist as well? Music, entertainment, many other aspects of
:10:20. > :10:24.his capacity. In this next drawing this is an example of the kind of
:10:24. > :10:32.engineering project he took on. can see here how he is organising
:10:32. > :10:38.and building the gate for different canals.
:10:38. > :10:43.As well as all his engineering work, in his spare time his serious
:10:43. > :10:48.interest in anatomy had been growing. A few of these anatomical
:10:48. > :10:56.drawings are also tucked away here in the collection. I wonder whether
:10:56. > :11:00.there is much correspondence between the mechanical drawings and the
:11:00. > :11:10.anatomical studies? Sometimes he tried to combine both. Because in
:11:10. > :11:14.
:11:14. > :11:21.his point of view the human body is Leonardo to make his paintings of
:11:21. > :11:25.the human body more effective. To start with his knowledge wasn't
:11:25. > :11:31.based on first-hand observation, but on speculative classical literature
:11:31. > :11:40.stretching back to Aristotle. This meant his drawings of the human body
:11:40. > :11:48.were not always anatomically correct. But his enquiring mind asks
:11:48. > :11:52.questions about the human form that had never been ask before. --
:11:52. > :12:00.asked. The breakthrough came at the end of the decade when he inside the
:12:00. > :12:05.head of a page on a new netbook, April, 1489, in the pages that
:12:05. > :12:10.follow he executed this exquisite series of drawings of the human
:12:10. > :12:20.skull. They were meticulous, lucid, very precise and clearly made from
:12:20. > :12:23.
:12:23. > :12:27.human material gave him an enhanced understanding of anatomical
:12:27. > :12:34.structures lending his drawings scientific credibility. But of
:12:34. > :12:38.course it wasn't just about observation. He was also an
:12:38. > :12:44.excellent draughtsman. What I'm going to do is take the skull off
:12:44. > :12:48.for you, and ask you to make a series of studies of it upside down.
:12:48. > :12:58.I want to find out how he articulated his understanding of the
:12:58. > :13:02.body through drawing. I am back in London to meet artist Sarah Simblet.
:13:02. > :13:07.What do you feel you have learned from his anatomical drawings?
:13:07. > :13:13.point of reference, I have learnt technically, the use of pen and
:13:13. > :13:18.ink, I have learned very much about the way in which he uses drawing to
:13:18. > :13:20.see and understand structure and form, the way he uses drawing as an
:13:20. > :13:24.investigative tool as well as a means of thinking and expressing
:13:24. > :13:29.himself. What was his technique?
:13:29. > :13:32.He has worked with a steel tipped pen, when you press it down onto the
:13:32. > :13:37.paper two pieces of metal will splay apart and bite undulating the
:13:37. > :13:44.pressure you can change the thickness and its oppression of your
:13:44. > :13:49.line -- splay apart and by undulating the pressure.
:13:50. > :13:55.He is thinking as an engineer, he is trying to understand the mechanism
:13:55. > :13:59.of the body, life, whereas an awful lot of artists look at the surface
:13:59. > :14:03.and want to be able to render muscular form and the power of the
:14:03. > :14:06.living body, Leonardo wants to get inside and understand how it works
:14:06. > :14:16.and you don't find other artists working in that way, a true
:14:16. > :14:18.
:14:18. > :14:25.Despite the breakthrough with the skills he put his anatomical
:14:25. > :14:28.investigations aside for a decade and went on to other things. For
:14:28. > :14:34.material Leonardo this meant anything from designing a game of
:14:34. > :14:41.Milan's Cathedral to painting one of his master curses -- masterpieces,
:14:41. > :14:44.the Last Supper. His latent enthusiasm for anatomy resurfaced
:14:44. > :14:54.around 1504 and in later life the studies took up more of his time
:14:54. > :14:54.
:14:54. > :14:57.than any other single activity. The Royal collection's exhibition,
:14:57. > :15:02.Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man, at the Edinburgh in the, has
:15:02. > :15:07.brought together a huge range of his anatomical drawings. -- Edinburgh
:15:07. > :15:13.International Festival. There is one that has never been shown in the UK
:15:13. > :15:19.in its entirety before. It consists of 18 sheets on which Leonardo
:15:19. > :15:24.crammed more than 240 individual drawings are covering almost every
:15:24. > :15:30.bone in the body, and many major muscle groups.
:15:30. > :15:37.Here we see the superficial anatomy of the shoulders, and the neck. You
:15:37. > :15:44.see the same model, it has been sensitively drawn, rotating in
:15:44. > :15:48.space, so we get a full articulation of something which is 3-D. The
:15:48. > :15:52.series continues right down to the bottom of the sheet way you can see
:15:52. > :15:56.the skin has disappeared, and underneath here are the muscles in
:15:56. > :16:02.the tendons laid bare so that Leonardo is not just observing how
:16:02. > :16:07.things appear in one static sense before his eyes, he is always
:16:07. > :16:11.thinking about how things exist in reality, in our world. He is 20
:16:11. > :16:21.articulate the functional side of anatomy. There she is trying to
:16:21. > :16:30.
:16:30. > :16:37.pictures to capture beautifully, a sense of physical movement. Every
:16:37. > :16:42.pose has been cleverly chosen to highlight each muscle group.
:16:42. > :16:49.Dancers, more than any group of people have a keen awareness of
:16:49. > :16:55.their bodies and how they physically function. I have come to a rehearsal
:16:55. > :17:03.of the Scottish Ballet to talk to the artistic director, Christopher
:17:03. > :17:07.Hampson, about Leonardo's skilful poses in his manuscript. I find it
:17:07. > :17:14.interesting he is using movement to further identify muscle groups and
:17:14. > :17:20.ligaments or perhaps how far the joint will move. It is poetic he has
:17:20. > :17:26.used something anatomical that could be quite dry. Christopher has found
:17:26. > :17:34.a unique way of bringing his poses to life. Do you think we should
:17:34. > :17:39.introduce the seminaked man? This is our principal dancer, Eric. He will
:17:39. > :17:46.help us out in recreating these images. This is the first example,
:17:46. > :17:52.what have you chosen? I have chosen the shoulder and the arm. It is a
:17:52. > :17:56.ballet pose any way. His arm is outstretched and Eric has
:17:56. > :18:02.automatically put his head looking down at the arm and you can tell
:18:02. > :18:06.that is indicated. It is not snapped this way, it has a slight bend,
:18:06. > :18:11.which you can see he has got there so all of the muscles are
:18:11. > :18:14.well-defined. That is why I find these drawings are so interesting,
:18:14. > :18:21.he has used rotation and shaping to make sure the correct the muscles
:18:21. > :18:29.stand out. Why have you picked this? It has a sense of movement to
:18:29. > :18:35.it. The arm is in what we call a fifth position. Eric, if you can
:18:35. > :18:41.take the fifth position. This gives us the shape. By making the four arm
:18:41. > :18:47.rotate in towards the head makes the bicep come out and ignite. It shows
:18:47. > :18:54.the arm much more clearly. This is your third example, what is
:18:54. > :19:02.happening? He is showing how the calf muscle gets fired up, ignites,
:19:02. > :19:09.I presume. Then he shows this, the foot on a three quarters point. You
:19:09. > :19:18.can see immediately the calf muscle gets fired up. It is a marked
:19:18. > :19:22.difference. Yes.This muscle becomes hard when pulling up the heel as
:19:22. > :19:30.well as releasing it. We have just seen that. You have seen it
:19:30. > :19:39.perfectly. Leonardo's sketches are remarkably succinct and accurate. He
:19:39. > :19:41.was able to convey all of this, simply through drawing. And now, the
:19:41. > :19:51.Royal collection's Leonardo exhibition in Edinburgh is doing
:19:51. > :19:51.
:19:51. > :19:54.something innovative live. This is the first exhibition that compares
:19:54. > :20:02.his anatomical discoveries simply using a scalpel and a pen with
:20:02. > :20:07.sophisticated imaging techniques like CT and MRI scans, and also 3-D
:20:07. > :20:12.films. It is staggering to reflect that even though today's anatomists
:20:12. > :20:20.are using contemporary technology, many of their conclusions are
:20:20. > :20:26.similar to Leonardo he made in his drawings 500 years ago. I want to
:20:26. > :20:36.put this idea to the test, so I am going to do a little experiment. I
:20:36. > :20:38.
:20:38. > :20:42.must admit, I am feeling a little apprehensive. This is an MRI
:20:42. > :20:52.scanner. Medical technology doesn't get much louder or more
:20:52. > :20:58.sophisticated. Are you doing OK in there? Fine. It is going to scan my
:20:58. > :21:05.hand so I can compared the results with one of Leonardo's anatomical
:21:06. > :21:13.sketches that he made in the winter of 1510. OK, it is all done.I have
:21:13. > :21:17.survived. You have indeed.I got through that, I still have some pins
:21:17. > :21:25.and needles in my arm and left hand. It is bizarre in there it is
:21:25. > :21:31.like being in a futuristic film set nightclub. I kind of went into
:21:31. > :21:37.another place, another zone. I am glad it is done, I am revising --
:21:37. > :21:42.relieved. Time to get out of my gown. Talk me through what we are
:21:42. > :21:46.seeing here. Even though we have all of this 21st-century technology,
:21:46. > :21:52.these are still complicated images. Can you talk me through what we're
:21:52. > :21:57.looking at? The straight lines are the muscles coming up. The white
:21:57. > :22:03.areas of the blood vessels. We have the bones over here which are dark
:22:03. > :22:08.on this picture. I brought along a reproduction of one of the most
:22:08. > :22:14.famous sheets by Leonardo. This was done in the winter of 1510, and it
:22:14. > :22:21.is startling looking at it compared to these images. Absolutely
:22:21. > :22:26.accurate. All of these tendons radiating up from the rest. It is
:22:26. > :22:32.amazing how accurate he was able to draw it. We can see the different
:22:32. > :22:37.bones, he has done it absolutely correct. This is a knot of
:22:37. > :22:44.complexity isn't it? Yes, these are the bones in the wrist which allow
:22:44. > :22:48.us to do everything. It looks like an area of parched earth. What is
:22:49. > :22:52.brilliant about these drawings is he manages to take something that is
:22:52. > :23:01.clearly so complicated and make it lucid and clear in a sheet done 500
:23:01. > :23:05.years ago. To achieve this level of accuracy, Leonardo not only had to
:23:05. > :23:12.be an excellent draughtsman, but also he had to be handy with a
:23:12. > :23:17.scalpel and have direct access to human bodies. In the course of his
:23:17. > :23:24.anatomical investigations, he only dissected about 30 corpses. And
:23:24. > :23:32.around 20 of these were carried out while he was compiling his
:23:32. > :23:37.manuscript and was probably collaborating with a doctor at the
:23:37. > :23:42.University macro. I have come to the anatomy department at Glasgow
:23:42. > :23:47.University to see the human dissection. What I hope is that this
:23:47. > :23:55.will help me understand Leonardo's achievement in these drawings by
:23:55. > :23:59.witnessing the complexity of what he himself would have observed. We are
:23:59. > :24:04.going to try and imitate one of the famous drawings Leonardo did, and
:24:04. > :24:12.give you an idea how complex the tissue is and how good a job he
:24:12. > :24:17.actually did. The difference between the modern era and his time is he
:24:17. > :24:24.obtained bodies either illegally through the church and through the
:24:24. > :24:27.pauper's house. But today, everyone we use here is donated willingly and
:24:27. > :24:34.knowingly. In their actual life, they have signed the forms
:24:34. > :24:38.themselves. We will move to the foot, and we will see the tendons
:24:38. > :24:42.becoming more prominent. These are the things standing out in his
:24:42. > :24:47.drawings. They are much more pronounced in his drawings and in
:24:47. > :24:52.reality. If you did not know what you are looking for, you might miss
:24:52. > :25:01.it? It is testament to the scale of Leonardo he can take something and
:25:01. > :25:09.make it so clear. You can see underneath, each tendon which is the
:25:09. > :25:14.thick white band? One of each of these for each toe. A collection of
:25:14. > :25:20.strings or ropes connected to the muscle at one end and to the bone at
:25:20. > :25:25.the other. Remarkable that not only he captured them in terms of his
:25:25. > :25:31.drawings, but understood the mechanical purpose of them. I
:25:31. > :25:34.imagine Leonardo going through this dissection and not just looking at
:25:34. > :25:41.it as a static example, but pulling on the tendons and moving things
:25:41. > :25:51.around. It is so clear to me now he did something remarkable in the
:25:51. > :25:52.
:25:52. > :25:57.drawings to articulate that in a clever, simple, plain fashion.
:25:57. > :26:00.Leonardo's combined skills as a dissected and draughtsman, meant he
:26:00. > :26:07.would glean insight that would not be observed to gain for hundreds of
:26:07. > :26:10.years. The full scope of his scientific accomplishments can be
:26:10. > :26:18.seen in the field of cardiac anatomy, which he carried out
:26:18. > :26:23.towards the end of his career. Intrigued by the way the aortic
:26:23. > :26:28.valve opens and closes to ensure blood flows in one direction,
:26:28. > :26:35.Leonardo set about constructing a model, filling an ox's heart with
:26:35. > :26:41.wax. When the wax had hardened, he recreated the structure in glass and
:26:41. > :26:48.pumped a mixture of grass seeds, suspended in water, through it. It
:26:48. > :26:55.allowed him to observe the vortex of the seed swelling around at the base
:26:55. > :26:59.of the aorta. And the result, Leonardo correctly posited, it
:27:00. > :27:07.helped to close the aortic valve. And that would not be observed a
:27:07. > :27:12.game for hundreds of years, until the 20th century. -- a game. One
:27:12. > :27:17.contemporary practitioner who studied this side of Leonardo's work
:27:17. > :27:22.is the heart surgeon, Francis Wells. The first time I focused on the
:27:22. > :27:26.drawings was when I'd just qualified as a doctor. Once I had seen them, I
:27:26. > :27:33.thought they were far better than anything we had in the current day,
:27:33. > :27:37.modern textbook of anatomy. They were beautiful, accurate and
:27:37. > :27:43.absorbing. You can look with a magnifying glass at some of the
:27:43. > :27:50.heart for example and the fineness of the shading gives you a depth to
:27:50. > :27:57.these drawings, which is technical genius. What did he find out about
:27:57. > :28:02.the heart? The heart was thought of as a two chamber structure up until
:28:02. > :28:07.and after his time - of course he never published this. But the
:28:08. > :28:13.atria, the filling changes were part as the system, the heart. Leonardo
:28:13. > :28:20.firmly states the heart is for Chambers. I brought along a
:28:20. > :28:28.reconstruction of a drawing he made where he observes the vortices.
:28:28. > :28:32.is a fine example of synopsis. He has the description of the vortices,
:28:32. > :28:37.and little diagrams showing how this argument has to be the right one for
:28:37. > :28:42.the mechanism of closure for the valve, and not such simple reflex of
:28:42. > :28:48.the blood and how it would fail. This wasn't understood or known
:28:48. > :28:55.about until the last century. But it was reported in 1968 by two
:28:55. > :29:02.engineers in Oxford. The references were back to Leonardo da Vinci, 500
:29:03. > :29:07.years old. The tragedy of his anatomical investigations is that he
:29:07. > :29:11.never got round to publishing them. It was almost as if he was
:29:11. > :29:20.constantly getting sidetracked with all of his difference projects. The
:29:20. > :29:25.abrupt death of his collaborator from the plague in 1511, coupled
:29:25. > :29:33.with public -- political turmoil in Milan cut short his systematic
:29:33. > :29:37.efforts to finish his treaties. When he died in 1519, the hundreds of
:29:37. > :29:44.sheets and notes he compiled over three decades remained hidden among
:29:44. > :29:51.his private papers. If Leonardo had published his treaties on anatomy, E