Codex Windsor

[1] To prepare for these drawings, Leonardo studied human embryology with the help of anatomist Marcantonio della Torre and saw a fetus in a dissected corpse.

[3] Leonardo da Vinci began studying the anatomy of the human body in the late 1470s and may have participated in the first dissections at the University of Padua.

[3] Leonardo's drawings show representations of the entire human body in various stages of dissection, as well as individual limbs and organs.

[1][4][5] After Leonardo's death most of his manuscripts and drawings were kept at his villa near Vaprio d'Adda, Lombardy, by his student and heir Francesco Melzi.

[2] Leoni attempted to organize the manuscripts thematically, separating Leonardo's artistic ideas from his technical and scientific drawings.