This series contains adult language and depictions of graphic violence.

Listener discretion is advised.

In the year 1506, the master of high Renaissance art, Leonardo da Vinci, was putting the finishing touches on what would become the most famous work of art in history. The Mona Lisa. As you might expect,

the final piece of the half-length portrait of Italian noblewoman Lisa deljiconda was the legendary enigmatic smile.

In addition to Leonardo's unmatched raw talent, he was possessed of an endlessly curious mind. his His curiosity would famously prevent him from ever taking yes for an answer.

He would always need to know why.

So when it came to painting the human form, Leonardo thirsted for the knowledge of how the body

functioned on a physical level, how the muscles moved, where they were attached, what nerve endings cause stimuli to fire those muscles,

which veins pumping blood could be discerned by the naked eye, and most importantly,

the interconnectedness of virtually everything happening just beneath our skin.

Leonardo, as a result, spent many nights in the morgues of Florence peeling back the skin of cadavers and sketching incredibly

accurate renderings of what he saw, and ultimately his paintings were achingly precise, often in ways that could never be appreciated.

How if a model posed in a certain position that would cause a muscle in the neck to flex in a specific way that would cause a

slight tension in the muscles of the upper back that would lead to an imperceptible

drawing back of the shoulder that would finally affect

how an article of clothing might fold in a way that an observer could perhaps perceive a partially flexed biceps, slightly tugging against

the material of the subject shirt.

Yes, it sounds crazy because it kind of is, but that's the level of understanding of the human anatomy that allowed Leonardo to create paintings that appear to be alive to capture the dynamic essence of a living, breathing entity.

And never more so than in his creation of the mouth of Lisa Deljiconda.

Welcome back to the Devil Within.

You're listening to cursed canvas. If you take the time to go through the notebooks of Leonardo, starting with the Codex Leister that Bill Gates bought in 1994 and published online, you'll find a truly amazing mind at work.

Walter Isakson, in his incredible biography, Leonardo da Vinci,

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