78 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



mals, including man; he also noted the changes in structure from 

 birth to old age. 



When Verrocchio, his master, left Florence for Venice in 

 1482, Leonardo departed for Milan, at the request of Lorenzo de 

 Medici. There, he apparently obtained all the material he needed 

 either at the Ospedale Maggiori or Academia dei Fisici. What he 

 complained of most, was lack of time to pursue the art of dis- 

 section. 



While at Milan, Leonardo came into contact, for a short 

 time, with a young Professor of Anatomy at the University of 

 Pavia, Marc Antonio della Torre (A.D. 1478-1511), who was 

 anxious to write a treatise on anatomy. Da Vinci sketched from 

 the dissections made by the anatomist and himself with the in- 

 tention of using them in the publication. Some were repeated a 

 number of times to get the picture desired and to account for vari- 

 ations. The untimely death of della Torre, from the bubonic 

 plague, prevented this prearranged goal. 



Leonardo fared less well in his anatomical pursuits at Rome, 

 to which city he migrated in 1513, at the age of sixty-one. He 

 performed dissections for a short period but, for the first time, his 

 notes indicate, he complained of lack of material. He encountered 

 opposition from Pope Leo X who denied him admission to the 

 city hospitals. His anatomical investigations led to his being sus- 

 pected; sacrilegious motives were imputed; this accounts for the 

 fact that the last five years of his existence were sterile in this 

 field. 



Leonardo believed imequivocally in the value of dissection 

 to learn human anatomy; he advocated it strongly and personally 

 exhibited great zeal in its pursuit and was able to inspire those 

 around him. He observed that the anatomists of his time showed, 

 from their behavior at the cadaver table, that they revered the 

 human body, whereas others in society were more interested in 

 destroying it. At first, he utilized the text of Avicenna as an aid. 

 but later abandoned it as well as all authority; he became an 

 original investigator and probed ever more deeply into the stru( 

 ture of man. 



Like his contemporaries, he did not find dissecting easy lo 

 perform: there were no methods available to artificially preserve 



