The Daily Telegraph

Leonardo was the son of a teenage slave girl who was trafficked to Italy, claims academic

- By Nick Squires in Rome

LEONARDO DA VINCI’S mother was a teenage slave girl who was trafficked to Italy across the Black Sea from the Caucasus, research has claimed.

Carlo Vecce, an Italian historian, discovered a document in archives in Florence that granted the teenager, whose name was Caterina, freedom from slavery.

It suggests that she was from what was then known as Circassia on the north-eastern shores of the Black Sea, meaning that Leonardo, one of the titans of the Renaissanc­e and considered a quintessen­tially Italian figure, was only half-italian.

Prof Vecce, from the University of Naples L’orientale, believes she was kidnapped from Circassia, possibly by Tartars, and then shipped across the Black Sea to Constantin­ople and from there to Venice.

She was then acquired by a family in Florence, for whom she worked as a wet nurse.

It was there that she was made pregnant by Leonardo’s father, Ser Piero da Vinci, in the summer of 1451.

Once the baby was born, Caterina was married off, with a generous dowry, to a local smallholde­r, with whom she went on to have five children.

The document that freed her from slavery is dated Nov 2, 1452 – seven months after Leonardo was born in the town of Vinci. The certificat­e, written in Latin, refers to Caterina as being “a slave” who had originally been taken

‘We know that Leonardo’s father was a bit of a goer – he was still producing children when he was 70’

from “Circassia”. The document, found in the state archives of Florence, was signed by Leonardo’s father, who was a prominent notary in the city.

“The notary who freed Caterina was the same person who loved her when she was still a slave and with whom he had this child,” Prof Vecce said.

He presented his findings in a new book, Il Sorriso di Caterina or Caterina’s Smile. “Leonardo was the son of a notary, but he was only half-italian, his mother a foreigner and a slave, a woman on the lowest rung of the ladder at the time,” he said.

Although the theory that Leonardo’s mother was a teenage slave girl has been around for a couple of decades, the connection with the Caucasus is new. And the discovery of the act of freedom lends the slave narrative more weight.

It was known that Leonardo’s mother was named Caterina, but not much more was known about her – it was long assumed that she was Italian, perhaps an orphan, and local to Florence.

Prof Martin Kemp, one of the world’s leading authoritie­s on the life and works of Leonardo, said the new findings were credible.

“Slaves were common in Florence, as they were in other societies of the time,” Prof Kemp, emeritus professor of the history of art at Oxford University, said.

“When slaves were brought to Italy, they were converted to Christiani­ty and given new names. Caterina was one of the most common for female slaves.

“We know that Leonardo’s father traded in slaves. He was also a bit of a goer – he was still producing children when he was 70.”

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