Leonardo's mother was a Circassian slave, it is stated in the new biography of the artist

Information about the parents of the most famous Renaissance artist is scarce. It is believed that his mother was a peasant from Tuscany. The author of a new book about Leonardo da Vinci, Professor Carlo Vecce of the University of Naples, believes that he has discovered the truth. As his archival research showed, the artist was only half Italian, and his mother was a slave, writes the Daily Mail.

"Leonardo's mother was a Circassian slave... taken away from her home in the Caucasus Mountains. It was sold and resold several times in Constantinople, and then in Venice, before it ended up in Florence", - Vechce said at the presentation of his book "Catherine's Smile. Leonardo's Mother" (Il sorriso di Caterina. La madre di Leonardo). In the capital of Tuscany, a young notary Piero (Peter) saw her da Vinci, the future father of the artist.

According to Vecce, he found evidence of this hypothesis in the city archives of Florence. Among the papers found there was a legal document written by Leonardo's father on Katerina's release, which was supposed to return her "freedom and human dignity." The researcher presented a document dated 1452, the year of da Vinci's birth, at a press conference in Florence. According to Vechche, it was written "by a man who loved Katerina even when she was a slave, who gave her a child and helped her free herself".

Previously, the most likely hypothesis was that the artist's mother, Caterina di Meo Lippi, was a Tuscan peasant. It was assumed that this was why Leonardo became an artist: as an illegitimate he was not allowed to follow in his father's footsteps, and he was forced to enter the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio as an apprentice. Vechche believes that the difficulties experienced by the mother affected the character of her son: "Katerina left Leonardo a great legacy, the spirit of freedom that inspired all his work".