This book offers 87 of Da Vinci's finest and most important studies of the human body, with full scientific and art-historical explanations and discussions. Leonardo has long been recognised as one of the great artists of the Renaissance, but he was also a pioneer in the understanding of human anatomy. He dissected more than 30 human corpses, exploring every aspect of anatomy and physiology, and recorded his findings in drawings and notes that bear witness to his astonishing insights into the subject. He intended to publish his ground-breaking work in a treatise on anatomy, and had he done so his discoveries would have transformed European knowledge of the subject. But on Leonardo's death in 1519 the drawings remained a mass of undigested material among his private papers and their significance was effectively lost to the world for almost 400 years, and were almost unknown until 1900.