Leonardo and the Reinvention of Anatomy

Time: 6:30 - 8:00 PM

Place: College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Event Type: Public event, ticket required (click "Visit site" above to purchase tickets)

When Vesalius started his life journey five hundred years ago, Leonardo Da Vinci’s own journey into the human body was symbolically coming to an end. Denounced by a German collaborator for necromancy, he would eventually be barred by the Church from even entering the Ospedale di Santo Spirito under accusations of “heresy and cynical dissection of cadavers1”. He will never dissect again. Still, Leonardo’s work might have actually been known to Vesalius himself, considering that Da Vinci’s heir, Francesco Melzi, kept all of his master’s notebooks not too far from Padua, and was eager to show them to anyone interested. They might have actually served as inspiration for Vesalius’ scenic styles of the Fabrica.

This talk will review Leonardo’s amazing contributions to the field of anatomy, which are eons ahead of anything available at the time, but that unfortunately remained locked in Windsor Castle for almost 300 years.

The talk has been written up as a scientific publication and it won the 2014 Vesalius Prize by the Hektoen Journal of Medical Humanities, and later on became a 30 minute Drexel interview broadcast by many PBS stations. Watch it HERE.

Speaker: Salvatore Mangione, MD

This lecture is part of the College's celebration of the 500 anniversary of the birth on Andreas Vesalius.