clipped from arts.guardian.co.uk

Da Vinci's mother was a slave, Italian study claims

The seemingly far-fetched theory that Leonardo da Vinci was of Arab descent has been given new backing in a study, published this week, that suggests his mother was a slave

It is known that Da Vinci's parents were not married and that his father was a Florentine notary, Ser Piero. In a tax record dating from 1457, five years after the Italian polymath's birth, his mother is described as one Caterina, who by then was married to a man from the Tuscan town of Vinci

It was assumed she was a local woman. But, according to Francesco Cianchi, the author of the study, "There is no Caterina in Vinci or nearby villages who can be linked to Ser Piero. The only Caterina in Piero's life seems to be a slave girl who lived in the house of his wealthy friend, Vanni di Niccolo di Ser Vann."

The study casts light on slavery in Renaissance Italy

"A lot of well-to-do and prominent families bought women from eastern Europe and the Middle East

girls

then baptised