L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 2023 www.italoamericano.org 4 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS O ne morning in July, a girl is dragged away f r o m h e r h o m e l a n d , reduced to slavery, and sold by human traffickers. From the wild plateaus of the Cau- casus to the Black Sea, from Constantinople to Venice, f r o m F l o r e n c e t o V i n c i . When she arrives in Italy, everything has been taken f r o m h e r - h e r b o d y , h e r dreams, her future, her land, and her ancient culture. But in Tuscany, her second life begins. Five centuries later, the accomplished Italian Renais- s a n c e s c h o l a r C a r l o Vecce is at the State Archive in Florence. As he reviews yet another document, he comes across the act of liber- ation of a slave, Caterina, b y h e r m i s t r e s s , M o n n a Ginevra, who had rented her out as a wet nurse two years e a r l i e r t o a F l o r e n t i n e knight. The act is signed by a young notary. Piero's hand must have been trembling on that special day: that unusu- ally error-filled act betrays h i s p r o f o u n d e m o t i o n . Because the freed slave is "his" Caterina, the girl who gave him her love and the six-month-old baby he holds in his arms. We are in an old house behind Santa Maria del Fiore, at the beginning of November 1452. The docu- ment is handwritten by the notary Piero da Vinci, the father of who was to become the brightest mind of the Renaissance, Leonardo. So far, it sounds like the plot of a novel. Indeed, it is between these two narratives that we find Il Sorriso di Caterina, the exciting story revealing the origins of the author of masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, the Salvator Mundi and The Virgin of the Rocks. The novel was con- ceived after Professor Vecce d i s c o v e r e d i m p o r t a n t unpublished documents, in the context of a complex and layered scientific debate. V e c c e i s a w e l l - k n o w n researcher, specializing in the life and works of Leonar- do, who has also been a visit- ing lecturer at UCLA, and now teaches Italian literature at the University of Naples L'Orientale. He has just pub- lished for Giunti a historical r e c o n s t r u c t i o n b a s e d o n ancient manuscripts that finally fills in the gaps in the biography of the talented sci- entist, painter, and inventor who revolutionized the histo- ry of thought and the figura- tive arts. According to Piero da Vinci, Caterina is the daugh- ter of Jacob and is of Circass- ian origins. The Circassians were one of the Caucasus' oldest indigenous popula- tions. Little was known about her, except that she was mar- ried to an obscure farmer from Vinci shortly after the birth of Leonardo. How did she come to Flo- rence? Continued to page 6 Caterina, Leonardo's last secret Leonardo da Vinci (Photo: Georgios Kollidas/Dreamstime) and the way we imagine Caterina, his mother (Photo: Ufficio Stampa Giunti Editore) BARBARA MINAFRA Donato, an old Florentine adventurer who lived Venice, where he had slaves from the East and the Black Sea in his service, buys her and brings her to Italy. Before he dies in 1466, he leaves his money to the Florentine convent of San Bartolomeo a Monteoliveto, for the construction of the family chapel. Piero da Vinci is his notary. Perhaps it is no coincidence Leonardo would complete his first work — a masterpiece, The Annuncia- tion — for that church. But history seems to enjoy playing hide-and-seek. Dur- ing renovation works for the new headquarters of the Uni- versità Cattolica in Milan, the Chapel of the Immacu- late Conception — the one famous for The Virgin of the Rocks — revealed some of its s e c r e t s : t h e w a l l a g a i n s t which the altar was placed, the floor in which the crypt opened, and the fragments of the starry sky painted on the vault by the Zavattari are all reappearing. It's an extraor- d i n a r y d i s c o v e r y : i n t h e crypt, ancient burials have been found. Perhaps, there is also the body of Caterina, who died in Milan, in her son's arms, in 1494. L ' I t a l o - A m e r i c a n o asked philologist and scholar Carlo Vecce what finding Leonardo's mother means and what hides behind Cate- rina's smile. P r o f e s s o r , h o w d i d your research develop? In the beginning, it was almost by chance: but does chance really exist? I have been studying Leonardo for m o r e t h a n t h i r t y y e a r s . I have published some of his manuscripts (the Libro di Pittura, the British Library's Arundel Code. Since 2017, I have been working on a pro- ject for the Accademia dei Lincei, the reconstruction of Leonardo's library. While I was double-checking all the documents, I came across an autograph paper by ser Piero da Vinci, Leonardo's father:

• Cover