In the aftermath of his work on the Battle of Anghiari, Leonardo returned to the study of anatomy, which had first interested him around 1490. He now had access to human corpses for dissection, suggesting that he now had some reputation as an anatomist, or at least that he was on good terms with physicians who facilitated his work.

In the winter of 1507-8 Leonardo performed a post-mortem on an old man in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. Leonardo recorded his findings from the dissection in the notebook that he had used almost 20 years earlier for his skull studies.