it is very hard to tell whether leonardo got his information from religious
or from medical sources, since the dersert fathers already used
physiological models in ascetical literature. (see Peter Brown, the body
and society, p.238). The explanation there is in terms of complexion -
persons of humid temperament being more given to tears and emotions than
those of a dry complexion; physical tears could in turn be transformed into
spiritual tears.
However; the idea of a connection between the eye and the heart
transporting tears does not seem to occur in salernitan explanations for
tears (see Lawn; the prose salernitan questions, p. 309-310) and don't
recall having encountered in aristotelian sources. But the medical
tradition allows for "short cuts" between organs; since milk was supposed
to be a blood product, concocted from menstrual blood, medieval anatomy
imagines a special blood vessel from the uterus to the breasts. liturgical
commentators explain the custom of wearing wedding rings on the fourth
finger by a assuming the existence of a conduct between the finger and the
heart. cf. Le rituel du mariage en France du XIIe au XVIe siècle by
Jean-Baptiste Molin et Protais Mutembe, Beauchesne : Paris, 1974.
Charles de Miramon and Maaike van der Lugt
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