Leonardo's Anatomy and the Architect Who Came First

In 1510, Leonardo da Vinci hunched over a candlelit table in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, carefully peeling back layers of muscle and tendon from a human arm. Over the course of his lifetime, he dissected more than thirty bodies, producing over 240 anatomical drawings of breathtaking precision. He mapped the chambers of the heart, traced the branching of nerves through the hand, and sketched the curled form of a child in the womb with such accuracy that modern physicians still marvel at his work.…