Angelo Paratico:
Mother Leonardo da Vinci was a Chinese slave

HONG KONG. The prototype of the "Mona Lisa" (Gioconda, 1503-19) may have been a mother Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519). However, the most interesting thing is that the mother of the great scientist and artist may have been a Chinese slave. These eccentric conclusions were made by the Italian historian and writer Angelo Paratico. He described his theory in detail in the book Leonardo da Vinci: A Chinese Scientist Lost in Renaissance Italy, The Daily Mail reports.

Leonardo da Vinci - Mona Lisa

For the past 20 years, Paratiko has lived in Hong Kong, where he studied relations between Italy and China in the second millennium. The scientist believes that he found convincing evidence of his theory, as described in an interview with the South China Morning Post: “I believe that Leonardo’s mother was born in the Far East, but it has not yet been proven whether she belongs to the eastern part of China, for this further investigation is needed. ”

According to one version of the origin of the brilliant architect, scientist and artist, the rich client of his father did have a slave named Katherine, but information about her disappeared in 1452, i.e. after the birth of Leonardo. According to the official version, his mother was really called Katherine, but she was from a peasant in the Ankiano region, not far from the Tuscan town of Vinci. However, based on his research, Paratico claims that the woman was just a slave.

Among the other important testimonies that the Italian scientist points to is the fact that the genius of the Renaissance was a vegetarian - a practice that was not common in Europe at that time. In addition, Leonardo wrote with his left hand - from left to right, which is typical for the peoples of the Far East. A number of historical studies confirm the fact that in Italy and Spain of the Middle Ages there were indeed many slaves from Asia.

In addition, Paratiko quotes the “father” of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939), who as early as 1910 suggested that the famous painting depicts the artist’s mother “against the backdrop of the Chinese landscape, and even the face of Mona Lisa has Chinese characteristics, ”Paratiko adds and notes that the only way to confirm or refute his theory is to exhume Leonardo’s body for DNA analysis.

Speculation around the model for the Mona Lisa has been going on for more than a decade. For example, in 2012, in the church of Saint Ursula (Sant’Orsola) in Florence, the search for the remains of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo (1479-1542), which supposedly posed for the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, was resumed. But there are other versions, according to one of them, the model was Katerina Sforza (Caterina Sforza, 1463-1509), according to the other - Salai (Salai, 1480-1524), one of Leonardo’s students. There is also an opinion that the “Mona Lisa” is a self-portrait of Leonardo himself…

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru