Last Friday we took a trip to the Loire Valley, where we visited Château d’Amboise, a royal palace that was home to Louis XII, Charles the VIII and François I. Although 80% of the palace was destroyed by Napoleon after the French Revolution left the majority of the estate in ruins, we still got a full tour of the remaining castle with an enthusiastic tour guide who shared historical gossip. From forcing queens to join convents to posing for fake pictures with celebrity of the day Leonardo di Vinci to increase the king’s popularity, Château d’Amboise seemed to never have a dull moment.
In addition to French nobility, this castle was also home to one of the most well-known and influential scientists to date- Leonardo da Vinci. It is also believed that da Vinci was buried here, but there is debate as to whether the body in question is actually the scientist. Because the original burial site of da Vinci was demolished, the body had to be excavated and moved to the chapel of Saint Hubert at Amboise. Unfortunately, we will never be able to know for sure that this is the body of the great scientist since there are no recorded samples of his DNA.
Even though modern neuroscience was born in the 20th century, its roots can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci for his work with brain anatomy. His work began with sketching the skull, and later included cranial nerves, major blood vessels of the brain, and he was the first person to include the frontal sinus in his work (Pevsner, 2002). For some of his anatomical work, da Vinci used animal models. In one of his more well-known sketches, the artist located the ventricles of a bull’s brain by filling the space where cerebrospinal fluid would be in a live animal.
By studying the work of Leonardo da Vinci, we also gain a historical perspective of the study of the brain and behavior. During the Renaissance, there was a different understanding of how areas of the brain correlated to one’s cognition. The third ventricle was believed to be the locus of the soul within the body, as was annotated in da Vinci’s series of anatomical sketches. The other ventricles were identified as centers of imagination, memory and the ability to understand relationships (Pevsner, 2002). Even though today we know that these correlations were far from the reality that we are still trying to understand, the work done by da Vinci allows us to better understand the foundation of neuroscience.
Resource:
Pevsner, J. (2002). Leonardo da Vinci’s contributions to neuroscience. Trends in Neurosciences,25(4), 217-220. doi:10.1016/S0166-2236(00)02121-4