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A new collection of documents found within the State Archives of Florence suggests that da Vinci's mother was an enslaved girl kidnapped from the Caucasus.
Leonardo da Vinci's mother was kidnapped and enslaved as a teenager in the Caucasus and sent to Italy, a new analysis of nearly 600-year-old documents suggests.
The documents, discovered by an Italian historian, suggest that da Vinci's mother, Caterina, was kidnapped and torn from her home by the Black Sea in Circassia before being shipped to Venice.
If they're accurate, it would mean that Leonardo da Vinci, considered to be one of the greatest painters and scientists of the Italian Renaissance, was only half-Italian. Carlo Vecce, the documents' finder and a professor of Italian literature at the University "L’Orientale" of Naples, has used the discovery as the subject of a historical novel.
The book — called "Il Sorriso di Caterina(opens in new tab)," or "The Smile of Caterina, the Mother of Leonardo" — contains factually accurate details from his research, Vecce said. The findings, however, have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. READ MORE...
