The Da Vinci Code
Historians have restored the family tree of Leonardo da Vinci. This will help to finally solve the riddles related to his personality
Maria Azarova, Naked Science
Leonardo da Vinci – Italian artist, scientist, engineer, sculptor, writer, architect (the list of skills of this homo universalis is truly impressive) – was born in 1452 in the Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence. He was the illegitimate son of Pierrot, a notary, and Katerina, a peasant woman. Da Vinci has never been married, had no relationships (in any case, it is impossible to judge this reliably), as well as children. However, the artist had at least 22 stepbrothers – it is thanks to them that da Vinci's descendants live in the world today.
Historians Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato presented the results of a study that covers a period of almost 700 years, from the first half of the XIV century, and shows the continuity of the direct male line from father to son in the da Vinci family, starting with grandfather Michele (born around 1331) and ending with fourteen living descendants after twenty-one generations and four different branches, originating already from Tomaso in the XIX century.
The work, published in the journal Human Evolution, fills in many gaps and corrects errors in previous studies of the Italian creator's family, offering new discoveries in this family tree.
The family tree of Leonardo da Vinci's family (shown up to the fifteenth generation).
Five branches go back to Leonardo's father (fifth generation, (1427-1504)) and half-brother Domenico (sixth generation). Since the 15th generation, data has been collected for more than 225 people, information was taken from historical documents in public and private archives, as well as from direct reports provided by surviving descendants who collaborated with scientists.
A few years ago, Vezzosi and Sabato identified 35 living relatives of Leonardo, including on the female side. They were mostly indirect descendants: among them was the famous Italian theater, opera and film director, Emmy Award winner Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019. Modern descendants of da Vinci live all over Italy, the eldest is 85 years old, and the youngest was born in 2020. Their work is quite ordinary: a clerk, a surveyor, a glassblower, a porcelain seller, and so on.
Researchers were able to trace the Y-chromosome, which fathers pass on to sons: it has remained almost unchanged for 25 generations. In the coming months, the genome of the descendants is going to be analyzed by comparing the Y chromosome with the DNA of the ancestors in ancient and modern graves. As a result, scientists want to implement a project to study the DNA of Leonardo da Vinci himself.
Why is this necessary? The fact is that the identity of the artist is still shrouded in mystery and many unsolved mysteries. After DNA confirmation, you can find out the origin of the master's parents, what he ate, whether he was left-handed, how quickly he aged, establish a picture of diseases and, finally, what is the secret of his genius. It is also supposed to verify the authenticity of works of art that da Vinci never signed.
It is difficult to restore the DNA of the Italian artist, because until now the exact location of his burial is unknown. Da Vinci was buried in the Church of St. Florentine in the French city of Amboise in 1519, but during the Revolution of the late XVIII century it was demolished. In 1863, the writer and literary critic Arsene Housset, who was engaged in the inspection of provincial museums in France, received permission to excavate this place. He managed to find the remains with a bronze ring on one finger, blond hair and fragments of stone with inscriptions that are believed to have formed the words "Leonardo da Vinci". A silver shield found next to the bones depicted the beardless Francis I, King of France since January 1, 1515, during da Vinci's lifetime.
In 1874, the body was reburied in the chapel of Saint-Hubert, on the tablets accompanying the burial in French and Italian it is written that these are the "supposed remains" of the Renaissance master. Subsequently, it turned out that Usse still could not resist and kept a lock of hair and a ring for himself. And in 1925, his great-grandson sold the relics to the American collector Harold K. Shigley.
In the mid-1980s, they were acquired by another collector from the United States – and it was he who contacted scientists in 2016 when they published the first results of a study of da Vinci's descendants. Therefore, the key to confirming whether a lock of hair belongs to the artist and whether it is his grave is in genetic analysis. If the DNA of the hair matches the DNA of living descendants, many issues will be resolved once and for all.
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