Description of panel C: the brain, cranial nerves, and ventricles (c.1490)
Windsor Castle, RL 12603 recto, c. 1490 To the left is the drawing of an onion. The text (translated by O'Malley and Saunders) reads:
| If you should cut an onion through the middle, you could see and enumerate all the coats or skins which circularly clothe the center of this onion. Likewise if you should cut the human head through the middle, you would first cut the hair, then the scalp, the muscular flesh [galea aponeurotica] and the pericranium, then the cranium and, in the interior, the dura mater, the pia mater and the brain, then again the pia, the dura mater, the rete mirabile and their foundation, the bone. |
The main drawing indicates layers of the head in sagittal section. They are:
| Hair; scalp (codiga); muscular flesh; pericranium arises from the dura mater; cranium, that is, bone; dura mater; pia mater; brain. |
The three cerebral cavities are labeled o, m, n (from anterior to posterior); the optic nerves enter the anterior cavity. Typically, the anterior ventricle was thought to house the sensus communis, the middle ventricle was the seat of cogitation (cogitatio), and the posterior ventricle housed memory (memoria).
At the bottom left, the eye and orbit are shown. At the bottom right, the layers of the head are again shown (hair; scalp; lacertous flesh; pericranium; cranium; pia mater; dura mater; brain). The head is sawed across and flipped back in the faint drawing at extreme lower right.
References:
| Clark, K. and Pedretti, C. (1968) The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Phaidon, 12603 recto |
| O'Malley CD and Saunders JB de CM (1952) Leonardo da Vinci on the human body (New York, Henry Schuman), plate 142. |
| Clayton M and Philo R (1992) Leonardo da Vinci: The Anatomy of Man (Boston: Little, Brown and Company) plate 1A page 26 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1978-1980) Corpus of the anatomical studies in the collection of Her Majesty, the Queen, at Windsor Castle (Keele, K. and Pedretti, C. eds.), Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 32r |