Who Was Leonardo da Vinci's Mother? Provocative New Book Suggests She Was A Slave From Central Asia
- 'Who Was Leonardo da Vinci’s Mom, Actually? A Provocative New Book Suggests She Was a Slave From the Caucasus of Central Asia.' Artnet.com, March 15, 2023.
The book is based on a newly uncovered document that was supposedly written by da Vinci’s father in 1452.
Was Leonardo da Vinci’s mother a slave from Asia? That’s the theory posited by a new novel, which draws on deep academic research to fill in the many gaps in the historical account of the woman, simply known as Caterina. The book may just shake up generations of scholarship around the Mona Lisa‘s maker. Il Sorriso di Caterina—or Caterina’s Smile—is the name of the novel, authored by the historian and University of Naples professor Carlo Vecce. It recounts, through a combination of fact and imaginative fiction, the story of how Caterina was kidnapped from the Caucasus area of Central Asia and moved to Florence, then Vinci, as a slave.
It was in the latter location that da Vinci’s father, a wealthy notary by the name of Piero da Vinci, supposedly freed Caterina—but not before she gave birth to a son out of wedlock. “Their son was called Leonardo,” Vecce told the Associated French Press in Florence this week, following a preview of his book. Undergirding Vecce’s theory is a newly uncovered legal document, written in the fall of 1452, which recounts the emancipation of an enslaved Circassian woman named Caterina. Vecce, who discovered the document in the State Archives of Florence, believes it was penned by da Vinci’s father.
It was written by “the man who loved Caterina when she was still a slave, who gave her this child named Leonardo and [was] also the person who helped to free her,” the author explained, noting that other pieces of evidence similarly corroborate the connection between Caterina and the elder da Vinci. Vecce added that he’s also working on a scholarly article about his theory. If his assertion is true, it would effectively negate previous theories about the identity of da Vinci’s mother, including suggestions that she was an orphan or a Tuscan peasant named Caterina di Meo Lippi. It would also mean that Italy’s most famous artist was, in fact, just half-Italian.
“When I saw that document I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Vecce added for NBC News. “I never gave much credit to the theory that she was a slave from abroad. So, I spent months trying to prove that the Caterina in that notary act was not Leonardo’s mother, but in the end all the documents I found went into that direction, and I surrendered to the evidence.” “At the time many slaves were named Caterina, but this was the only liberation act of a slave named Caterina Ser Piero wrote in all his long career,” he went on. “Moreover, the document is full of small mistakes and oversights, a sign that perhaps he was nervous when he drafted it, because getting someone else’s slave pregnant was a crime.”...https://news.artnet.com/art-world/leonardo-da-vinci-mother-slave-central-asia-2271000
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- THE CAUCASUS is a region between the Black Sea & the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, & parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically been considered as a natural barrier between Eastern Europe & Western Asia.. the Western Caucasus also exists as a distinct geographic space within the North Caucasus. The Greater Caucasus mountain range in the north is mostly shared by Russia & Georgia as well as the northernmost parts of Azerbaijan. The Lesser Caucasus mountain range in the south is occupied by several independent states, mostly by Armenia, Azerbaijan, & Georgia, but also extending to parts of northeastern Turkey, northern Iran & the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus
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- Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Renaissance Polymath. The Mona Lisa painting, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian Renaissance polymath who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he also became known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and paleontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his collective works comprise a contribution to later generations of artists matched only by that of his younger contemporary, Michelangelo.
Born out of wedlock to a successful notary and a lower-class woman in, or near, Vinci, he was educated in Florence by the Italian painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. He began his career in the city, but then spent much time in the service of Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Later, he worked in Florence and Milan again, as well as briefly in Rome, all while attracting a large following of imitators and students. Upon the invitation of Francis I, he spent his last three years in France, where he died in 1519. Since his death, there has not been a time where his achievements, diverse interests, personal life, and empirical thinking have failed to incite interest and admiration, making him a frequent namesake and subject in culture.[vague]
Leonardo is identified as one of the greatest painters in the history of art and is often credited as the founder of the High Renaissance. Despite having many lost works and fewer than 25 attributed major works—including numerous unfinished works—he created some of the most influential paintings in Western art. His magnum opus, the Mona Lisa, is his best known work and often regarded as the world's most famous painting. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his Vitruvian Man drawing is also regarded as a cultural icon. In 2017, Salvator Mundi, attributed in whole or part to Leonardo, was sold at auction for US$450.3 million, setting a new record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction....https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vincihttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus
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