Domenico Laurenza

La composizione del corpo. Fisiognomica ed embriologia in Leonardo

SUMMARY Physiognomics is included by Leonardo among the matters to be treated in his book of anatomy. In this context embriology provides physiognomics with a scientific explanation through the theory of the generative soul (virtus formativa) which directly produces the detailed form of each individual body or compositio. Unlike the well-known medical concept of complexio, compositio concerns the solid parts of the body and it is a part of a physiological and psychological theory alternative to the humoral one. Leonardo appears to be influenced by a scholastic tradition of biology represented by authors such as Albertus Magnus and the fifteenth-century Bolognese doctor Hieronymo Manfredi.