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Abstract
How in words can you describe this heart without filling a whole book?(Quaderni 11 1 r.)
The 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519, Figure 1) this spring is a fitting moment to reflect on the passionate efforts of this larger-than-life figure to study the human heart. Leonardo was a famous artist but also an innovative engineer, inventor, and early modern scientist.1 His scientific explorations of the body, while in many ways grounded in the beliefs of his own time, show both his particular genius in observation and deduction, and an underlying empiricism that resonates deeply with the approaches of modern biology. Leonardo’s findings on the anatomy and physiology of the heart, preserved in his private sketches and notes, reveal a remarkable period of transition in the early history of cardiology.