Abstract

Born on 15 April 1452 Ankiano village near the town of Vinci in Tuscany, Italy, hence the name Da Vinci - Mweintz J. age 15 he began teach oneself with the sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence. Then Leonardo began work as a private artist, and later worked for ruler of Milan Ludovico Sforza, Rome and Venice and then moved to France under the king also died in 1519. Among other things, Leonardo was a sculptor, painter, inventor, a pathologist, he studied birds and through flight.

Leonardo Da Vinci

The relatively recent findings in the late 1990s and early 2000s by Italian researchers regarding the circumstances of Da Vinci's birth have challenged long held assumptions about his origins. Papers discovered by the Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci (Leonardo Da Vinci Ideal Museum), in the artist's hometown of Vinci, in Tuscany, coupled with 25 years of extensive research, resulted in the museum's assertion that Da Vinci's mother was not, after all, an Italian peasant as was believed for so many years (Lorenzi, 41).

While it is known that Da Vinci was born in Vinci, in Florence, Italy, on April 15, 1452, as the illegitimate son of the notary Piero da Vinci and a woman named Caterina, it is now disputed that Caterina was a local peasant. Rather, Da Vinci's father, Piero, is believed to have met Caterina through a friend who acquired her as a slave. In a tax record dating from 1457, when Leonardo was 5 years old, Leonardo's mother was identified as Caterina, at that time married to a man named Acchattabriga di Piero del Vaccha (Kemp, 54). Researchers have said there is no other Caterina in Vinci or nearby villages who could be linked to Piero, Leonardo's father, other than the woman who lived in the house of Vanni di Niccolo di Ser Vann, a wealthy friend of Piero. Researchers have also claimed that Da Vinci's father, Piero, owned a slave called Caterina. During the time of the Renaissance, a period of cultural rebirth that began in Italy in the 14th century and continued through the 16th, it was common for Florentines to take slaves from the Middle East and the Balkans. At the time of Leonardo da Vinci's birth, there were more than 500 slaves in Florence. Female slaves were commonly baptized and renamed, and the most popular names were Maria, Marta, and Caterina. While none of the evidence suggesting Caterina's Arabic background is definitive, it is highly suggestive of an alternative story. Further evidence of an Arabic lineage is suggested by a fingerprint analysis conducted using Da Vinci's notebooks and drawings, which were prolific. The patterns and ridges in Da Vinci's fingertips suggested a possible Middle Eastern heritage. At age 60, and after the death of her husband Caterina moved to Milan where Leonardo was then living (Zubov, 74).

Mother and son developed a relationship and continued to communicate by letter. These letters, contained in collections called the Codex Atlanticus and Codex Forster II, contain clues to Caterina's ...