The chamber of a Florence hospital where Leonardo Da Vinci dissected human bodies has been opened to experts for a limited period.
The Renaissance genius studied the human organism's structure and function in the large rectangular room on the basement level of the city's Santa Maria Nuova hospital between 1505 and 1506.
"As well as science, there was a lot of humanity and an element of poetry in Leonardo's anatomic work, even though he did it amid dissected dead bodies at night," said UCLA Professor Carlo Pedretti, a leading Leonardo scholar and a member of the group that has been granted exceptional access to the chamber.
Pedretti stressed that, although Leonardo's curiosity was not limited to any field, the main reason he wanted to dissect cadavers was to improve his work as an artist.
Santa Maria Nuova was the first hospital Leonardo was given permission to dissect bodies in.
He later dissected bodies in Milan and in Pavia to create the multitude of breathtaking studies revealing the interplay of bones, nerves, muscles and tendons featured in his notebooks. In total, Leonardo dissected 30 male and female corpses of different ages. He also dissected animals to compare their anatomical structure with humans'. This sort of research was looked on with suspicion in the Renaissance master's lifetime and earned him accusations of grave-robbing.
Among the bodies Leonardo studied in the city's Santa Maria Nuova chamber was that of a 100-year-old man and another of a two-year-old boy.
"A few hours before he died, this old man told me he was 100 years and that he did not feel an deficiency in his person, never mind any weakness," Leonardo wrote in a notebook contained in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle Library "And so, sitting on a bed in Florence's Santa Maria Nuova hospital, he passed from this life without movement or other incident and I did anatomy to see the cause of his sweet death.
"The other anatomy I did was on a child of two years, in whom I found each thing the opposite to the old man". The chamber features three huge ceramic tanks which are thought to date back to Leonardo's time.
Experts are trying to work out what Leonardo might have used them for.
