Leonard's mother? "A slave from the East": the discovery thanks to an ancient document
According to the scholar Carlo Vecce, the woman who gave birth to the great genius was a Circassian servant, later freed by Piero da Vinci. Was the Mona Lisa's smile hers?The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (Ansa)
Leonardo da Vinci's mother was a Circassian woman, enslaved and brought to Italy.
The extraordinary discovery on the "Caterina" which gave birth to the great Tuscan genius was made by Carlo Vecce , Leonardo scholar and biographer.
According to Vecce, this Caterina (until now identified as Caterina del Vacca or Caterina di Piero Lippi) had been taken prisoner at a very young age, in Circassia, today's Caucasus , and would have arrived in Italian territory through a "messer Donato" , who traded fabrics between Venice and Florence.
In Florence it had been bought by Piero da Vinci , who would not only use it for himself and his family, but also as his sexual slave .
And, among the illegitimate children that Caterina gave birth to Piero, there would also be Leonardo, born in April 1452 .
The document on which Vecce's reconstruction is based dates back to that year: it would be the deed with which Piero da Vinci gave freedom to the slave Caterina , dated precisely 1452 (November), which reads: «Filia Jacobi eius schlava sue serva de partibus Circassie».
Vecce's theory has also become a novel, entitled "The smile of Catherine" (Giunti) . A title that also fuels the suggestion that the famous smile of the Mona Lisa may perhaps be that of Caterina , the slave who came to Italy from the East as a refugee and who gave life to one of the greatest artists and scientists of all time.
(Unioneonline/lf)