Lists & hierarchies

Get hold of a skull

Here's a list from Leonardo da Vinci, of a type we are all familiar with. What is it?

Have Avicenna translated. ‘On the Utilities’.

Spectacles with case, firestick, fork, bistoury, charcoal, boards, sheets of paper, chalk, white, wax, forceps, pane of glass, fine-tooth bone saw, scalpel, inkhorn, pen-knife. Zerbi, and Angnolo Benedetti. Get hold of a skull. Nutmeg.

Observe the holes in the substance of the brain, where there are more or less of them.

Describe the tongue of the woodpecker and the jaw of a crocodile.

Give the measurement of the dead using his finger.

Lists of Note(2014)

It's a to-do list!

In around 1510, da Vinci went to the University of Pavia to dissect and draw corpses. This is a list of things to do before he leaves. (The second item is a second list: a list of things to get.)

Vertical, horizontal, or matrix? Ordered or unordered? How many levels? What are the list items? How much detail in each item?
  • Vertical, but the second item is a second, horizontal list.
  • Unordered.
  • Flat list, 1 level.
  • The list items are things to do before leaving the university. The second item might not look like it follows the pattern, but you can think of that item as being introduced with the word, "Get:".
  • The items vary in detail from single words to full sentences.
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