The mystery of the identity of Leonardo da Vinci’s mother: Is Catherine a slave from the Caucasus?
New documents shed light on the identity of Leonardo da Vinci’s mother, of whom practically nothing was known until today. Adventurers, prostitutes, pirates, enslaved people, knights, gentlewomen, peasants, soldiers, and notaries. Their stories go back from Vinci to Florence, Venice to Constantinople, and the Black Sea to the wild highlands of the Caucasus.