0:00:09 > 0:00:11We are our bodies.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17We see the outside all the time, but that's less than half the story.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20The surface, the exterior.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23We know far less about what's inside.
0:00:25 > 0:00:28Heaven forbid that we should actually see our insides.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30Most people go through their life
0:00:30 > 0:00:33without getting a look at their organs, and for good reason.
0:00:33 > 0:00:37My lungs and kidneys and heart, bones and muscles,
0:00:37 > 0:00:40arteries and veins, they do their jobs unseen.
0:00:40 > 0:00:44But for the anatomists, the doctors and artists
0:00:44 > 0:00:46who have struggled for centuries
0:00:46 > 0:00:49to understand how our bodies actually work,
0:00:49 > 0:00:53getting inside, dissection, was vital.
0:00:56 > 0:00:58In this five-part series,
0:00:58 > 0:01:02I'll be investigating the beautiful synthesis between discoveries
0:01:02 > 0:01:05in anatomy and works of art that illustrate them.
0:01:07 > 0:01:08'As a scientist myself,
0:01:08 > 0:01:12'and someone who is fascinated by anatomical images, I want
0:01:12 > 0:01:18'to find out exactly how anatomy has inspired art, and art anatomy.'
0:01:21 > 0:01:24And it's going to be my privilege to see some of the greatest
0:01:24 > 0:01:26works of art in the world.
0:01:29 > 0:01:33The most influential doctor ever to study our anatomical structure
0:01:33 > 0:01:37lived and worked in Rome, in the second century AD.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41He went by the name of Galen.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45Galen's ideas influenced some of the greatest artists of all time,
0:01:45 > 0:01:47including Leonardo da Vinci,
0:01:47 > 0:01:50who took anatomy to new artistic heights.
0:01:50 > 0:01:56Galen's teachings held sway for more than 1,500 years after he died,
0:01:56 > 0:01:59and in this first episode, I have just one question -
0:01:59 > 0:02:01why?
0:02:23 > 0:02:26The Roman physician and surgeon Claudius Galen
0:02:26 > 0:02:30was fascinated by everything that goes on beneath our skin.
0:02:33 > 0:02:37He studied muscles, veins, arteries, sight and smell,
0:02:37 > 0:02:40how we move, breathe and bleed.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47He is best known for his theory of the humours, the essential
0:02:47 > 0:02:52fluids that flow through us and shape our characters and our health.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02Galen's view of the body is based on an idea of health
0:03:02 > 0:03:05and disease as a matter of balance.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08So it's a materialist view of the body, it's not about demons
0:03:08 > 0:03:11and spirits, but about physical processes and substances.
0:03:11 > 0:03:15And it's a view of the body that very strongly connects the mind
0:03:15 > 0:03:17with the functioning of the body
0:03:17 > 0:03:20and with what we would now call lifestyle and environment.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29The basis of this idea is the so-called four humours,
0:03:29 > 0:03:33the idea that health and disease are governed by the movement
0:03:33 > 0:03:36of these subtle fluids around the body.
0:03:38 > 0:03:44Galen's work provides the basis of initially classical medicine and
0:03:44 > 0:03:48then Renaissance Western medicine for an incredibly long period of time.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52It's not really until, I think, probably the early 19th century
0:03:52 > 0:03:56that Western medicine finally rids itself of a Galenic influence.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59So, Galen's ideas are clearly enormously persuasive - there's
0:03:59 > 0:04:03something about them that speaks to our understanding of our body.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10In the second century, Galen was famous
0:04:10 > 0:04:14because he was the physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17The Romans had banned human dissection, so Galen learned about
0:04:17 > 0:04:20our anatomy from treating gladiators' wounds
0:04:20 > 0:04:22and from dissecting animals.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27Everything he discovered he wrote down,
0:04:27 > 0:04:29but none of it was illustrated.
0:04:32 > 0:04:35I've come to Cambridge to find out how Galen's writings survived
0:04:35 > 0:04:38and how his work led to a surprising flowering of artistic
0:04:38 > 0:04:42interpretations after the Empire ended.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47How is it that his ideas survived so well?
0:04:47 > 0:04:49Well, this book gives us a clue.
0:04:50 > 0:04:57It's written in Persian and it shows that Galen's influence was
0:04:57 > 0:05:01felt as far away as what is present-day Iran.
0:05:02 > 0:05:09This text was written in 1386, and it's the so-called Anatomy of Mansur.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14'What this book proves is that original texts of Galen's work
0:05:14 > 0:05:17'made their way out of the classical world
0:05:17 > 0:05:20'and into Persia, where they were translated.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24'They were then put together with artists' impressions of Galen's
0:05:24 > 0:05:26'writings from ancient Egypt.'
0:05:26 > 0:05:32Although this text here is not by Galen, it might as well be,
0:05:32 > 0:05:38because almost everything written in it testifies to Galen's own ideas.
0:05:42 > 0:05:47And, indeed, these diagrams that go with the text probably go back
0:05:47 > 0:05:52to Alexandria, where Galenic anatomy was being taught in the fifth
0:05:52 > 0:05:57century AD. These pictures in this Persian manuscript seem to go right
0:05:57 > 0:06:03back to that source, because they contain the same series of figures.
0:06:04 > 0:06:06There are five figures in all,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09each featuring a major system of the body.
0:06:11 > 0:06:17So, we have the vein man, the nerve man, the artery man.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21And then two which, for that time, are particularly interesting.
0:06:21 > 0:06:25Even though he'd only dissected animals nearly 2,000 years ago,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29Galen's description of the human skeleton is almost completely
0:06:29 > 0:06:33correct, and his muscles are largely right too.
0:06:36 > 0:06:40He had an idea of what we would now call physiology,
0:06:40 > 0:06:42how the body worked,
0:06:42 > 0:06:45and he associated that with three organs in particular -
0:06:45 > 0:06:49the brain, which controlled the mental processes and thought,
0:06:49 > 0:06:51and then the heart,
0:06:51 > 0:06:55which was supposed to be responsible for the system which allowed
0:06:55 > 0:07:00the body to move, and then the liver, which was supposed to control
0:07:00 > 0:07:04digestion and other bodily processes through the veins.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09So, it was all knitted together into one big system,
0:07:09 > 0:07:13and anatomy, as it were, was the structure behind this.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16But the function of the organs was the important part.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24So, what matters to Galenic anatomy is the relationship
0:07:24 > 0:07:28between organs - indeed, between all the features of the body.
0:07:30 > 0:07:32And where I'm going now,
0:07:32 > 0:07:35there's a book that shows us that these ideas of Galen's were
0:07:35 > 0:07:39alive and well in Europe over 1,000 years after his death.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44This is Lambeth Palace, and here in the library there is
0:07:44 > 0:07:49a gem of medieval anatomy, a little French book that tells us loads about
0:07:49 > 0:07:53how our internal organs and bodies were viewed in the Middle Ages.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05Galen thought anatomy was more than just a skill.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08He believed it revealed the relationship between man
0:08:08 > 0:08:10and the universe as a whole.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18And this is what I've come to see. Thank you, Naomi.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21It might not look very big or impressive, until you look inside.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26This is a book of hours, a devotional book.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29One from which Christians would read Psalms and prayers,
0:08:29 > 0:08:32and this one is just lavish. There is incredible lettering,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35and the pictures are brought to life with gold leaf.
0:08:39 > 0:08:44The book was owned by a French nobleman named Simon Vostre.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47He commissioned it from the printer Philippe Pigouchet,
0:08:47 > 0:08:49and it was finished in 1498.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55Early on in the book is something very different from the other
0:08:55 > 0:08:57richly decorated pages.
0:08:58 > 0:09:00Anatomy.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06Now, this particular image is called The Planet Man,
0:09:06 > 0:09:09and it's meant to show the influence of the planets
0:09:09 > 0:09:12and the heavens on our lives and our health.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19The man in the middle has his abdomen exposed
0:09:19 > 0:09:22and you can see his organs - there's the heart,
0:09:22 > 0:09:27and I guess the liver and intestines right there, visible on the page.
0:09:29 > 0:09:33Now, you can see that the illustration is heavily annotated,
0:09:33 > 0:09:37but it's written in 15th century French, and my medieval French
0:09:37 > 0:09:41is a bit rusty, so I've asked Caroline Petit to help me translate.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44Caroline, what do the captions actually say?
0:09:45 > 0:09:48Well, the captions connect planets
0:09:48 > 0:09:53and other heavenly bodies with parts of the body.
0:09:53 > 0:09:58So here, for example, you have the sun connected with the stomach.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01So the caption says "sol regarde l'estomach" -
0:10:01 > 0:10:04"the sun is looking at the stomach."
0:10:04 > 0:10:05And these larger captions
0:10:05 > 0:10:09over the bottom and the sides, what do they say?
0:10:09 > 0:10:14You have references to moments in the calendar and the opportunity
0:10:14 > 0:10:19to bleed the patient according to their individual temper, temperament.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22So you bleed them as a treatment for something,
0:10:22 > 0:10:25but this is describing when to do it.
0:10:25 > 0:10:26When to do it, exactly.
0:10:27 > 0:10:33For example, when the moon is in Taurus, Virgo and Capricornus,
0:10:33 > 0:10:37it's good to bleed a melancholic.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39OK, so this is sort of an introduction to medieval
0:10:39 > 0:10:43medicine as it relates to the stars and these ancient concepts.
0:10:43 > 0:10:49Exactly, because the man is directly connected with
0:10:49 > 0:10:51all the parts of the universe.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55Man is part of the great design of God.
0:10:59 > 0:11:04In Galen's system, the influence of the planets is closely tied
0:11:04 > 0:11:06to his theory of the humours.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11So, you have four humours, blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16The healthy body has all its humours in balance.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20So, if you get an excess of black bile, for example,
0:11:20 > 0:11:25you might be subject to an onset of melancholy or madness of a kind.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29There was nothing weird in that, actually.
0:11:29 > 0:11:35It was both kind of scientific and totally in accordance with
0:11:35 > 0:11:36religious beliefs.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42So, the medicine and the anatomy is really tied up with the theology.
0:11:42 > 0:11:47This is a reminder of your own mortality. Yes, exactly.
0:11:47 > 0:11:52Anatomy IS theology in the Middle Ages, that's very clear.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02So, condensed in this one anatomical image is an entire
0:12:02 > 0:12:05view of human existence.
0:12:05 > 0:12:08And however odd Galen's humours might seem today,
0:12:08 > 0:12:11it was a sophisticated system of thought.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18Galen's power, his enduring influence, lay in his explanations.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21For centuries, scholars don't challenge him
0:12:21 > 0:12:23because he makes a lot of sense,
0:12:23 > 0:12:27he gives reasons for everything that happens in the human body.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30His anatomy and his physiology, well, they just work.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40So, this is a branch of the median nerve,
0:12:40 > 0:12:43and we have... The palmar cutaneous branch of the median nerve
0:12:43 > 0:12:46comes off in the forearm and runs along...
0:12:46 > 0:12:50'The underlying principle of Galen's approach to anatomy
0:12:50 > 0:12:52'is first-hand investigation,
0:12:52 > 0:12:57'and that is as important today as it was nearly 2,000 years ago.'
0:12:59 > 0:13:03I studied anatomy for just a year when I was an undergraduate.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07My tutors used to refer to this process as plumbing and carpentry.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10I guess what they were referring to is how you can't really
0:13:10 > 0:13:13learn about how our bodies work unless you're willing to get
0:13:13 > 0:13:17your hands dirty and get stuck in and actually do dissection yourself.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22And that is what the word "autopsy" means - to see for yourself.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26Which is exactly the message of what Galen was doing, and what all
0:13:26 > 0:13:30the anatomists of the past were trying to teach their students.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39In the middle of the 15th century, the course of anatomy changed.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45With the fall of Constantinople in 1453, classical books started to
0:13:45 > 0:13:50flow into Europe, including, for the first time, original texts of Galen.
0:13:52 > 0:13:53The influence on anatomy
0:13:53 > 0:13:57and its depiction in the art was transformative.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01This is the moment when the history of anatomy undergoes a step change.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03It's all happening in Italy.
0:14:03 > 0:14:09By 1478, public dissections of human corpses have become popular
0:14:09 > 0:14:11annual events in Bologna.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14At carnival time, it's the best show in town.
0:14:18 > 0:14:22And in Florence at about this time, a young artist was developing
0:14:22 > 0:14:25what would be a lifelong fascination with the human form.
0:14:27 > 0:14:30Leonardo da Vinci built on Galen's work
0:14:30 > 0:14:33and took anatomical art in a new direction.
0:14:35 > 0:14:37He also fulfilled Galen's ambitions
0:14:37 > 0:14:40by dissecting actual human bodies himself.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45The 15th century saw the birth of what we call art theory,
0:14:45 > 0:14:47where writers were saying,
0:14:47 > 0:14:48"this is what art should do."
0:14:50 > 0:14:55To represent nature rationally, you should understand what nature is.
0:14:56 > 0:14:58The artist needed learning,
0:14:58 > 0:15:02and amongst that learning is the knowledge of the human body.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07Anatomy being central to the portrayal of the human figure
0:15:07 > 0:15:11was well entrenched by the time Leonardo was an apprentice.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19He saw visual representation as conveying almost everything
0:15:19 > 0:15:22you need to know about the world - what it looks like,
0:15:22 > 0:15:27how it functions, and so on. So it's a terrifically demanding agenda.
0:15:27 > 0:15:29He wanted painting, he wanted his anatomical drawings
0:15:29 > 0:15:33and all these things basically to say, this is how things are.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36Not just what they look like, but how they work.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42Most of what we know about Leonardo's anatomy comes
0:15:42 > 0:15:47from some 200 anatomical drawings and annotations that Leonardo
0:15:47 > 0:15:51made in his lifetime, and which are now held at Windsor Castle.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59After his death in 1519, they were seen by very few people,
0:15:59 > 0:16:03but by 1690, they had been acquired by the British Royal family.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Now, we don't quite know how they got here, but they now
0:16:08 > 0:16:12belong to the Queen and form a core part of the Royal collection.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15And I've been given the privilege of seeing them
0:16:15 > 0:16:18in the flesh here in the Royal library in Windsor.
0:16:24 > 0:16:25And here they are,
0:16:25 > 0:16:29and I'm totally overwhelmed by how astonishing they are.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35I've seen these dozens of times,
0:16:35 > 0:16:38but never in the flesh, and never so close.
0:16:42 > 0:16:46These were drawn by Leonardo da Vinci himself
0:16:46 > 0:16:49into his notebook at the end of the 15th century.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54And what you don't get to see unless you get really up close is
0:16:54 > 0:16:58the texture on these drawings, you can really see
0:16:58 > 0:17:02the crispness of the paper and the lines that he's drawn.
0:17:02 > 0:17:06They are incredibly powerful images.
0:17:11 > 0:17:13Probably the earliest real anatomical drawings
0:17:13 > 0:17:18we have by Leonardo of 1489 is a series of the skull.
0:17:18 > 0:17:22He clearly got hold of a real skull and he drew the skull
0:17:22 > 0:17:26and sectioned it, which is itself very unusual, you know,
0:17:26 > 0:17:30actually going through at various points to see what
0:17:30 > 0:17:33the internal structure was, like a piece of architecture, almost.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38On the basis of this dissection, Leonardo thought he could
0:17:38 > 0:17:42make sense of the ancient theory that the brain had three chambers.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47In the first one, he had the imprensiva,
0:17:47 > 0:17:49the receptor of impressions,
0:17:49 > 0:17:53and the notion is it acts rather like a seal on wax.
0:17:53 > 0:17:57Impressions are sort of impressed, literally, into this.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01Then these are all passed on for coordinating into this central
0:18:01 > 0:18:04section which is the processing section.
0:18:04 > 0:18:06Then, finally,
0:18:06 > 0:18:10at the end of the system, there is a flask which is called memory.
0:18:11 > 0:18:15The theory, of course, is wrong, but Leonardo's belief in it
0:18:15 > 0:18:20emphasises how, like Galen, he was never satisfied with form alone.
0:18:20 > 0:18:22He wanted to know how the body worked.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26'Martin Clayton is head of prints
0:18:26 > 0:18:28'and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31'He believes Leonardo was not only one of the greatest artists
0:18:31 > 0:18:35'of his - or any - age, but a great scientist, too.'
0:18:35 > 0:18:39This is one of the sheets compiled by Leonardo in the winter
0:18:39 > 0:18:42of 1510, in this case showing the facial muscles,
0:18:42 > 0:18:46two-stage dissection of the hand and the muscles of the shoulder.
0:18:46 > 0:18:48It looks anatomically accurate to me. It is.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51All the muscles of the arm he got exactly right.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54He didn't have any names for them, but he drew them so precisely
0:18:54 > 0:18:57you can identify them with muscles we would identify today.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00He's investigating all of this first-hand.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03He doesn't believe any structure until he's seen it himself,
0:19:03 > 0:19:06and because very little of this was written about in contemporary
0:19:06 > 0:19:09treatises, he's basically having to make it up from scratch,
0:19:09 > 0:19:13he's having to go in and find out what the body is like first-hand.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16That's very much a sentiment that Galen expressed,
0:19:16 > 0:19:19that one had to get stuck in, do it yourself,
0:19:19 > 0:19:21in order to understand how the body was put together.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24How much of the dissection did he actually do himself?
0:19:24 > 0:19:27As far as we can tell, he carried out most of it himself.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31At the start of his career, he's not working with soft human tissue,
0:19:31 > 0:19:36he dissects birds, dogs, pigs, frogs, a monkey, and so on.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39It's only a human skull that he manages to get hold of in 1489.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46The late 15th century sees this explosion in anatomical
0:19:46 > 0:19:49investigation, of which Leonardo is just apart,
0:19:49 > 0:19:53and by 1509 he claims to have dissected 10 human corpses.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56At the end of his life, he claims to have dissected 30, and the evidence
0:19:56 > 0:19:59of the surviving drawings does suggest that, you know,
0:19:59 > 0:20:01that's about right, probably 30 human corpses
0:20:01 > 0:20:04in the course of a five or six-year career.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18'It was in Florence that Leonardo refined his skills
0:20:18 > 0:20:20'as a master of anatomy.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27'The Renaissance city he knew was a prosperous place of 50,000 people.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37'The wealth it produced paid for a thriving artistic community.
0:20:41 > 0:20:46'It's easy to see why Leonardo had become so interested in anatomy.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49'Florence was buzzing with imaginative ideas
0:20:49 > 0:20:52'about the human form and its creative potential.'
0:20:58 > 0:21:02Analysis of the body, it was argued, could produce beautiful art.
0:21:04 > 0:21:05In a sense,
0:21:05 > 0:21:08that's exactly what Leonardo achieves in his anatomical drawings.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11He dissects a body and deconstructs
0:21:11 > 0:21:16the parts in order to reconstruct them as a perfect work of art.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26Leonardo's drawings also share one important belief
0:21:26 > 0:21:29with his distant predecessor Galen.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34Both men thought that to dissect the human body was to reveal
0:21:34 > 0:21:36the perfect work of God.
0:21:37 > 0:21:40Leonardo, in his anatomy and everything else, believed
0:21:40 > 0:21:43absolutely in the argument from design.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49The argument was that the machinery of nature - above all,
0:21:49 > 0:21:53the human body, which was the most perfect bit of nature -
0:21:53 > 0:21:56testifies to the presence of a divine creator.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02People couldn't believe, and Leonardo above all couldn't believe,
0:22:02 > 0:22:07this wonderful machinery of the body wasn't designed to
0:22:07 > 0:22:09be as perfect as it could be.
0:22:12 > 0:22:17The human body he saw as a microcosm, a little cosmos,
0:22:17 > 0:22:20and it mirrored the whole world.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24Therefore, if you looked at branching systems, say the bronchi
0:22:24 > 0:22:29in the lungs, he'd see those as treelike, and he would say, this is
0:22:29 > 0:22:33not just a loose analogy, but they actually function in a similar way.
0:22:33 > 0:22:38So he's seeing the human body as a microcosm of the macrocosm,
0:22:38 > 0:22:40the larger organisation of the cosmos.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47Leonardo had begun his investigations into human
0:22:47 > 0:22:49anatomy in Milan.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52But some of his most intriguing dissections took place
0:22:52 > 0:22:53when he was back in Florence
0:22:53 > 0:22:56in the first few years of the 16th century,
0:22:56 > 0:22:57and staying in a monastery.
0:22:59 > 0:23:01And this is where he lived.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04Leonardo returned to Florence in 1500, and the monks
0:23:04 > 0:23:07of the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata put him up
0:23:07 > 0:23:10while he worked just down the road.
0:23:12 > 0:23:16By now, Leonardo was touching 50, and a celebrated artist.
0:23:16 > 0:23:20He'd completed The Last Supper just a couple of years earlier.
0:23:22 > 0:23:26Florence welcomed him back as a prince of the arts.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30Now, it was one thing to celebrate the painter of The Last Supper,
0:23:30 > 0:23:34quite another the dissector of the recently deceased.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37Autopsy was accepted in Italy at the time, there was an annual
0:23:37 > 0:23:41event in Bologna, but the type of private dissection that
0:23:41 > 0:23:44Leonardo practised was a dark art.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56One of his improvised dissecting theatres
0:23:56 > 0:23:59was at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.
0:24:01 > 0:24:03It's still here, at the heart of the city,
0:24:03 > 0:24:05and it's still a hospital today,
0:24:05 > 0:24:09as it was when Leonardo worked here in the early 1500s.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12His excitement at what the human body revealed was
0:24:12 > 0:24:15tempered by a sense of horror.
0:24:16 > 0:24:19Leonardo said there was a high price to pay
0:24:19 > 0:24:22for the rewards of dissection. Quite apart from the skulduggery,
0:24:22 > 0:24:24the amateur dissector
0:24:24 > 0:24:27had to overcome his very natural repugnance
0:24:27 > 0:24:31and fear of spending the night, in Leonardo's words,
0:24:31 > 0:24:35"with corpses quartered and flayed and horrible to behold."
0:24:44 > 0:24:48He was constantly throwing open the doors of discovery, and one
0:24:48 > 0:24:52of the most remarkable dissections he performed was of an old man.
0:24:54 > 0:24:56In the winter of 1507,
0:24:56 > 0:25:00Leonardo dissected the body of a man who had claimed to be 100 years old.
0:25:00 > 0:25:05He met him at the hospital, where they sat and talked for a few hours.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07The old man said he suffered no pain
0:25:07 > 0:25:10and that he wasn't feeling particularly unwell.
0:25:10 > 0:25:12Just a few hours later, sitting on his bed,
0:25:12 > 0:25:14the old man passed peacefully away.
0:25:18 > 0:25:23Leonardo was keen to find out what had caused, as he put it,
0:25:23 > 0:25:24so sweet a death.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28He started his dissection, and the drawing that followed is
0:25:28 > 0:25:31one of the most remarkable in the Royal Collection.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34It's also surprising, because it's androgynous.
0:25:38 > 0:25:40This is a compendium,
0:25:40 > 0:25:44if you like, of everything Leonardo knows about the viscera to this date.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47So many of the structures that you see depicted here are derived
0:25:47 > 0:25:50directly from his dissection of the centenarian.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53The form of the liver, the hepatic vessels between the liver
0:25:53 > 0:25:55and the spleen, the spleen itself, the heart,
0:25:55 > 0:25:59the branching of the vessels - all of that is found in the notebook
0:25:59 > 0:26:02that Leonardo compiled as he was dissecting the old man.
0:26:05 > 0:26:07That spleen looks enlarged to me. Is that accurate?
0:26:07 > 0:26:10Well, the spleen is enlarged and the liver is a bit withered
0:26:10 > 0:26:14because the old man had cirrhosis, and he thought that's what
0:26:14 > 0:26:17normal anatomy looked like, because he'd not seen a spleen before.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20And so, subsequently, he draws the spleen in this enlarged state.
0:26:22 > 0:26:24The top half is from the old man directly,
0:26:24 > 0:26:27but the bottom half is somewhat different.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30Yes, well, to study a uterus, he obviously needed to dissect a female,
0:26:30 > 0:26:34and, as far as we know, Leonardo had not dissected a female by this date.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37So the form of the uterus is perfectly spherical,
0:26:37 > 0:26:41and, if you look carefully, you can see seven internal chambers,
0:26:41 > 0:26:43which is what Aristotle said were in the uterus.
0:26:43 > 0:26:47These great horn-like structures going off to either side,
0:26:47 > 0:26:50uterine ligaments, they are derived from a dissection of a pregnant
0:26:50 > 0:26:53cow that Leonardo carried out about a year earlier.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57It's very, very unfamiliar to me, this bottom half.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59If you frame it like that,
0:26:59 > 0:27:01I wouldn't necessarily recognise that as human anatomy at all.
0:27:01 > 0:27:05Well, he's still finding his way and he's doing the best he can
0:27:05 > 0:27:07with the information that he has at his disposal.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11And some of it is imperfect, so you will find mixtures of very
0:27:11 > 0:27:14accurate parts with bits that still have a lot of work to do.
0:27:16 > 0:27:21Leonardo died in France in 1519 at the age of 67.
0:27:21 > 0:27:25He'd intended that his notebooks would form the basis of a huge
0:27:25 > 0:27:27treatise on anatomy,
0:27:27 > 0:27:31but he was always far too busy with other projects to compile it.
0:27:35 > 0:27:39The drawings we are left with display a clarity and insight
0:27:39 > 0:27:45about our bodies which outshone any previous anatomical illustrations.
0:27:45 > 0:27:47They also demonstrate Leonardo's commitment
0:27:47 > 0:27:49to Galen's ancient maxim -
0:27:49 > 0:27:51that real knowledge of the body
0:27:51 > 0:27:55can only be acquired by first-hand investigation.
0:27:59 > 0:28:02Galen's incisive writings were the inspiration for all
0:28:02 > 0:28:04the anatomists who followed him.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07While he was denied the chance to dissect human bodies,
0:28:07 > 0:28:13his successors did, and they transformed both anatomy and art.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18In less than a century, anatomical illustrations had gone
0:28:18 > 0:28:22from being slightly crude depictions of what people thought that Galen
0:28:22 > 0:28:28meant to a highly sophisticated and beautiful artform with Leonardo.
0:28:28 > 0:28:33From this point on, art and anatomy would be one.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03Marine Le Pen has her eyes on the French presidency.
0:29:03 > 0:29:07As she tries to distance herself from her party's controversial past,
0:29:07 > 0:29:11we follow the money and ask, "Who's funding her campaign?"