“On the Hand from Within”: Palms, Selfhood and Generation in Leonardo’s Anatomical Project

This study focuses on a hand-dissection report in Leonardo’s anatomical investigations, a page whose reception-history is rich with approbation and lacunae. The hermeneutic of suspicion that the author proposes explores this folio as a case for the claim that Leonardo’s meandering page-configurations relay more than is revealed in his overt arguments. At issue is a tacit discourse of the palm as the epitome of selfhood, a site of intimacy that undermines the primacy of sight in Leonardo’s manifest texts. The palm, a matrixial organ, is thus linked to the economy of lacks, desires and transferences that underlies Vincian art theory.