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Abstract

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.