RENAISSANCE 99 



same time a mechanician — the professions of painting and mechanics in 

 those days were often combined. He afterwards led a restless life, carried out 

 work in many places in Italy, and ended his days at the French Court. His 

 world-wide fame he of course won as a pioneer in the art of painting. In 

 this his greatest contribution was his introduction of a close study of human 

 anatomy; he drew for the benefit of his pupils a vast number of anatomical 

 figures, which are still preserved, and published a work on the proportions 

 of the human body. He did not study only man, however; all sorts of natural 

 objects and natural phenomena interested him. In a mass of roughly drafted 

 notes, which were never combined into a connected whole and were not 

 printed until our own day, he has recorded his observations and reflections 

 on practically every sphere of human knowledge. He not only studied human 

 anatomy; he also compared similar organs in different living creatures; he 

 investigated optical sensations; he observed the structure of different geo- 

 logical strata, and maintained, in opposition to Aristotle, but in agreement 

 with Xenophanes, that fossils were animal remains. In every field he shows 

 himself an opponent, not only of scholastic traditions, but also of the slavish 

 admiration for antiquity that characterized the Renaissance. Not the classical 

 authors, but experience should be the source of human knowledge. Unfor- 

 tunately his speculations were merely fragmentary and for that reason were 

 unprinted. It was not until later that they were more closely studied, and 

 Leonardo's influence upon science has been only indirect, as a result of the 

 impression made by his personality and his art. The study of the human 

 anatomy which he initiated was continued by other Renaissance artists and 

 in that way reacted upon culture in general; these painters and sculptors 

 were certainly not without their influence upon the impetus given to medical 

 anatomy in the sixteenth century. 



In the field of medical science the influence of the Renaissance was felt 

 in the same way as in other branches of human knowledge; a return was made 

 from the mediasval authorities to antiquity. The doctors applied themselves 

 to the study of the classical languages; they severely condemned the barba- 

 rous Latin of the mediaeval professors and formed their style on the best 

 Roman and Greek models. And in conformity with this enlightened spirit 

 the poor editions of the medical writers of antiquity which were based on 

 Arabic translations were banned and were replaced by new editions of Hip- 

 pocrates, Celsus, and Galen, which, published with careful textual criticism 

 and sound commentaries, were, thanks to the progress of book-printing, 

 widely dispersed throughout the universities. One of the most brilliant and 

 at the same time most typical students of medicine during the Renaissance 

 was Jacob Sylvius, of Paris. Born in 1478, he devoted himself from early 

 youth to the study of classical languages, not only Roman and Greek, but 

 also Hebrew. He was a fine stylist and was the author of several works on 



