As an anatomist - as anybody - looking at the pages of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks on display in the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace in London, is a humbling and mind-bending experience.
My first reaction to the beautifully displayed pages, each sandwiched between two sheets of glass so you can view both sides, was the smallness of his notebook, not much larger than A5, in fact. But Leonardo certainly crammed a lot into that space.
Each page is covered in minutely observed details of anatomy, framed by copious notes in his tiny, spidery mirror-writing (because it was easier for a left hander, or perhaps - I like to think, anyway - because it would make it difficult for anyone else to read and steal his ideas).
I've seen these images so many times before: the two skulls, sectioned to show the cavities within; a man and woman fused in coitus; the muscles of the back, the arm, the leg; the extraordinary rust-tinted foetus curled up inside its cut-open womb, like a kernel inside a strange fruit. But previously, I'd only seen photos, reproductions. Here I was gripped by their originality, freshness, immediacy: marks made on paper, in metalpoint and pen and ink, 500 years ago. What they reveal is the understanding achieved through the observation of nature, completely undiminished by the passing of centuries and the accumulation of theory.
His mind is open to the facts as revealed to him, not through the writings of wise men but through direct observation. He looked into the body of a human and saw it for what it was: a complex, beautiful and strange piece of machinery. He may not have understood how it all worked but he knew that the answers lay in such observation.
