Marco antonio della torre and leonardo da vinci

Abstract

Thanks to collaborations with anatomists and the possibility of performing public dissections during the Renaissance period, artists started to represent the human body more accurately and objectively in their drawings. This cultural change provided the basis for subsequent advances in education and learning as well as the institution of an obligatory anatomy course in the Academies of Arts. The encounter in Pavia between the eclectic artist Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) and the physician Marco Antonio Della Torre (1481–1511), Professor of Theoretical Medicine at the University of Padova, who near the end of his short life founded the “Anatomical School” of the University of Pavia, could be considered a perfect example of this collaboration. According to the historian Giorgio Vasari, while Della Torre practiced dissection, Leonardo made a book of drawings with red chalk annotated by pen. All these anatomical drawings by Leonardo, preserved at Windsor Castle as the property of the Queen of England, date from 1513, after the death of Della Torre. During the same period, Leonardo started his own dissections in the crypt of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence with his anatomical knowledge already mature and consolidated. The aim of the present study is to present the life of Della Torre, his intense scientific activity between Padova and Pavia, and his relationship with Leonardo Da Vinci. In particular, we found the only available manuscript of Della Torre in the Marciana library of Venice. Clin. Anat. 32:744–748, 2019. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Marc’Antonio Della Torre and Leonardo Da Vinci: an encounter that changed the history of medicine, art and anatomy

“…Other great artists such as Durer, Rubens and Guido Reni had contacts more or less lasting with notorious anatomists of their time. The connection between Marc'Antonio and Leonardo represented the beginning of a collaboration that helped the artist to overcome the limitations of the study of anatomy thanks to the help of an experienced anatomist [7].…”

“…In this article, we want to represent the life of the brilliant physician Della Torre, born and raised in Verona from an illustrious family, surrounded by the cultural climate of the Republic of Venice of that period, and the impact that his encounter with the unique genius of Leonardo Da Vinci had on the history of medicine, art and anatomy [6,7].…”