- La Gioconda has eastern cheekbones. They are not really typical of Italian women. But looking at you, I begin to believe in the Circassian version of the origin of Leonardo da Vinci's mother, because many historians say that it was from her that the artist painted his famous Mona Lisa. You have the same, - the PR director of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in his hometown of Vinci Katerina McTinti smiles at me.
In an Italian town, I, a Circassian woman, came on vacation and simply could not help but go to the museum of the famous artist, scientist and inventor. After all, in my homeland, in Adygea, historians often argue who Leonardo's mother was - Italian or Circassian?
MONA LISA RIDDLE
For five centuries, thanks to the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, there has been a work of art in the world that symbolizes the riddle of absolute femininity - the portrait of Mona Lisa. The artist painted it in oil on a poplar wood board in thin layers of painting. The size of the picture is 76.8 by 53 centimeters, the strokes are so small and accurate that no modern technique determines the number of layers. Moreover, she does not recognize traces of the artist's work at all. The impeccability of the technique confirms that Leonardo conveyed to the viewer the essence of the smile intended for him.
To reproduce the fleeting movement of female facial expressions, the artist invented a special technique "sfumato" - literally "disappearing like smoke." The technique works on subtle tone transitions, masking clear contours and creating a lively interplay of light and shadow. Only scientists from all over the world are still arguing - who is the woman depicted in the portrait to be the male artist ?!
There are several versions of who is depicted in the portrait. According to one of them in the picture - the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo Lisa Gherardini. At the same time, the only description of how the masterpiece was created belongs to da Vinci's contemporary, artist and writer Giorgio Vasari: “Leonardo undertook to create for Francesco Giocondo a portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife, and, after working for four years, left it unfinished. During the painting of the portrait, he kept people who played the lyre or sang, and there were constantly jesters who removed melancholy from her and maintained gaiety. That is why her smile is so pleasant."
The town of Vinci, where the famous artist lived. Photo: Domenico Alessi.
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Vasari wrote - people believed. But there are strong arguments that the portrait is a different woman. It is not clear why, despite the fact that Francesco del Giocondo has lived a long life, there is a mourning veil on his wife's head? Secondly, if there was an order, why did the artist keep the painting with him all his life, and in 1516, moving from Italy to France under the patronage of King Francis I, Leonardo took it with him? Why didn't he give the job to the customer? Another incomprehensible circumstance - Giorgio Vasari lived in the same era as Leonardo, but he was much younger than a genius. At the time when Leonardo died, Vasari was only 8 years old, so the degree of reliability of the statements of the writer Vasari is rather controversial.
But there were many opinions. For example, they said that Mona Lisa is both a self-portrait of Leonardo himself, and a portrait of his student, and just an ideal collective female image. There is a version that the portrait depicts the mother of Leonardo da Vinci. If this is so, then the woman in the famous painting could have been born not at all in Italy, but in Adygea. Or, to be more precise, in Circassia, which it was part of. In 1452, Circassia represented almost all of the present North Caucasian Azov-Black Sea-Caspian intermarium - it was the territory of the modern Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, the Republic of Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia.
One of the early biographers of Leonardo, known as the "Gaddian Anonymous" (his manuscript was kept in the Florentine Gaddi family and may have been written by someone from the family), writing around 1540, claimed that the artist's mother came from an aristocratic family, but was illegitimate.
Many historians believe that Leonardo is the illegitimate son of Sir Piero di Antonio da Vinci. His father was a notary, he worked constantly in Florence. The profession has been inherited in the family since 1339. An entry in an old notarial book made by Leonardo's grandfather, Antonio, reads: “1452. My grandson was born from Sir Pierrot, my son, on April 15, on Saturday, at three in the morning. Received the name Leonardo."
But little is known about the mother of the talented inventor and artist Katerina. Although she was described as an exceptional beauty, but from a lower class of society. Sir Pierrot could not marry such a man, and Leonardo, his illegitimate child. But nevertheless, the boy was accepted into his family by his father, and Catherine was married to a family friend, Sir Piero di Antonio da Vinci. She married the potter Antonio di Piero Buti del Vacca.
Martin Kemp, Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of Oxford, claims that Leonardo's mother Caterina di Meo Lippi was a peasant who lived with her grandmother in a dilapidated house a mile from Vinci.
Leonardo Museum in the city of Vinci. Photo: Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci.
- Caterina di Meo Lippi, no matter how trite, sinned, - Martin Kemp says. - Leonardo himself was born in Vinci, in the house of his grandfather Antonio, and not in a house in the village of Anchiano, three kilometers from the city, which is now officially called La casa natale di Leonardo and attracts tourists.
But how the life of Catherine ended, scientists learned from the diaries of Leonardo da Vinci himself. The master wrote that on July 16, 1493, his mother came to Florence to spend her last years in his house. There she died two years later.
Daughter of a prince and an actress
The famous American journalist and publicist Curtis Bill Pepper even devoted 15 years of his life to studying the artist's biography and published the biographical novel Leonardo. In his book, he claims that the mother of Leonardo da Vinci was the Circassian slave Katerina.
Here is what he writes: “Mom loved Leonardo very much, she raised him until his father took his son to his house. Mother's name is Katerina, she is very beautiful. And her father had a lot of land and horses, and he is a Circassian prince. Lives on the Black Sea, behind a country called Greece. Catherine's father wanted a son, not a girl, and he sold his daughter as a slave to a banker from Florence. Where Katerina met Leonardo's father."
And since the artist's father is from a noble family, and his mother is a slave, then the couple simply could not be together. At that time it was not even discussed. Therefore, Katerina was married to a potter, and her son was taken to his father. And since then, the mother has not been shown the child.
By the way, in his book Curtis Bill Pepper also cites the Circassian surname of Katherine's father and the eastern (possibly Arabic) surname of her mother: “Katerina's father was the son of the great Bahri Sultan Hadjiy al-Muzafar. And he had no other title than Blanesh, which is translated from the Adyghe language as "brave knight". But the people called him Dzapsh, or the Prince of Warriors, because of his battles against the Mongols in the North Caucasus. He had the pride and courage of a great prince. Katerina's mother worked as an actress and cabaret singer in Jaffa. She was very beautiful, and her name was Hagar."
In his book, the American writer reports that little Katerina was sent to a convent. The father wanted a boy and could not come to terms with the fact that the actress gave birth to a girl for him. Dzapsh himself was married to another woman who, as Curtis Bill Pepper assures in his book, could have poisoned her husband's mistress, Katerina's mother. The girl herself was first called Sethenai, which means "beautiful flower", but after her mother stopped coming to her monastery, she was given the nickname Kan-zik, as an adopted child. And then the girl was sold to a Genoese slave trader as a virgin princess in order to help out more money.
According to Curtis Bill Pepper, Leonardo da Vinci was raised by his Italian stepmother, whom he dearly loved.
Cherkessian slaves - more expensive
But the Adyghe historian has a completely different version.
- It is absolutely unknown with whom Leonardo spent his childhood - with his father or with his mother, - the historian Samir Hotho believes. - Because Sigmund Freud, analyzing Leonardo's notes, came to the conclusion that in childhood he lacked his father's attention. At the same time, all his life he demonstrated self-confidence and consciousness of his extraordinary talent - traits not typical for children from single-parent families.
The historian says that the mother of the genius Leonardo could well have come from Circassia - now Adygea.
- In Circassia, during the last third of the XIII-XIV centuries, the natives of ancient Liguria founded more than three dozen trading posts. At the northern borders of Cherkessia there was a powerful colony of the Venetians - Tana. The main export product that attracted Italians was grain,”says Samir Hotho. “But along the way, the merchants did not miss an opportunity to acquire slaves. Circassian slaves were much more expensive than slaves of other nationalities, and their numbers were relatively small. Thus, the indication in Italian documents of the Circassian origin of the slave should be taken as highly accurate.
And his words even have historical confirmation - the medieval author Iris Origo even made a list of slaves sold in Florence from 1366 to 1397. It was during this period of time that the mother of the great inventor appeared in Italy. His papers indicate that among the slaves there were 329 women, and only 28 were men, of whom only four were over 16 years old.
This couple has nothing to do with the artist's family. Photo from the archives of the museum in Adygea, and in the photo - an ordinary Circassian couple. Do you agree that Mona Lisa and the woman in the photo have similarities?
“And these data indicate that Circassian slaves were rare and, apparently, were expensive. Accordingly, they could not be confused with anyone from other nations, Samir Hotkho is sure. - And after the capture of Kafa by the Ottomans in 1475, the communications of the Europeans with the Black Sea basin were almost completely interrupted. For more than two centuries, the Black Sea turned into an internal lake of the Ottoman Empire. But in the 16th - 17th centuries, European businessmen and missionaries penetrated the Black Sea region. Therefore, a small number of natives of Circassia in various ways could find themselves in the countries of Western Europe. In addition, there was a constant opportunity for Europeans to acquire Circassian slaves in the Ottoman market. In the XIV-XV centuries. and later in Italy and Circassia lived, apparently, a significant number of representatives of the mixed,Italian-Circassian, origin. Moreover, this confusion was not always the result of the slave trade. So, in Matrega, in the west of Circassia (today it is the Temryuk district of the Krasnodar Territory) in the period between 1419 and 1475, the Genoese-Circassian family of Gizolfi ruled. The matrega was given as a dowry to the son-in-law of the powerful Circassian prince Berozok - Viccentius de Gisolfi. Instead of a son, his father Simon ruled in the city, and later Zakkaria de Gizolfi, the son of a Circassian princess, who was the grandson of Berozok and Simon, inherited the power. The matrega was given as a dowry to the son-in-law of the powerful Circassian prince Berozok - Viccentius de Gisolfi. Instead of a son, his father Simon ruled in the city, and later Zakkaria de Gizolfi, the son of a Circassian princess, who was the grandson of Berozok and Simon, inherited the power. The matrega was given as a dowry to the son-in-law of the powerful Circassian prince Berozok - Viccentius de Gisolfi. Instead of a son, his father Simon ruled in the city, and later Zakkaria de Gizolfi, the son of a Circassian princess, who was the grandson of Berozok and Simon, inherited the power.
In this document, which is in the Leonardo Museum, it is said that the artist's mother, Catherine, is a slave. Photo: Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci.
At that time, the slave trade for Italy was one of the most profitable articles of "business" in the Caucasus. The slaves were sold and bought by everyone who had at least some working capital: notaries, traders, bakers, tailors, butchers.
In all historical documents, records of merchants, travelers, fragility, harmony, grace of Circassian slaves are uniquely described, which, in fact, was appreciated by buyers.
So who was the boy?
It is widely known that the founder of the Medici dynasty Cosimo (an important statesman of Italy in the 15th century) had a son from a Circassian slave. At a time when the coast of Circassia was flooded with traders from Genoa, Cosimo de Medici bought a girl of Circassian origin named Maddalena from slave traders in a market in Venice. She began to serve in his house. Soon, Maddalena's son Carlo was born from Cosimo. And when the boy grew up, his father gave him a church career. Carlo Medici became archbishop and at the same time rector of two churches. And then he was appointed at first as the chief tax collector for the Pope in Tuscany, and soon as a nuncio - the pope's diplomatic representative. And in 1463, Pope Pius II appoints Carlo de Medici as Apostolic Protonotary - chief secretary of the highest court,this is the second person after the patriarch.
And Leonardo da Vinci's father was Cosimo Medici's right hand.
- Thus, the mother of Leonardo da Vinci and the parent of Carlo de Medici came from a distant, but at the same time very well-known country to Italians, - says Samir Hotho.
Alessandro Vezzossi is the director of the Leonardo Museum in Vinci. Photo: Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci.
The version that Leonardo da Vinci's mother was a slave from the Middle East or North Africa is actively supported by the director of the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in his hometown, Alessandro Vezzosi.
“I was able to find evidence that Piero da Vinci, Leonardo’s father, had a slave brought to Tuscany from Istanbul,” he says. - By the way, at that time slaves were often given the name Katerina. But no one has yet found a contract for the purchase of a slave, which would definitely prove this version.
SPECIFICALLY
John Colarusso, Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics, Bill Clinton's Caucasus Advisor:
- I believe that the hypothesis that Leonardo da Vinci's mother was a Circassian "slave" could be true. Several years ago in Italy, I talked with a professor, whose name, unfortunately, I will not name today. His profession is a clothing and textile historian. He said that the Genoese and Venetians brought many Circassians to Italy, where they sewed special clothes for the European nobility during the Renaissance. A huge part of Italy, especially the west coast from Naples to Rome, was inhabited by the Circassians. Since it was more economical than sailing to Circassia and buying clothes there, where silk came along the Great Silk Road. Instead, the Italians simply bought silk from Circassia, took slaves there, and they sewed clothes in Italy. Was Mona Lisa a Circassian woman? It is somewhat similar. This is the same assumption as others,but it explains the great care in painting the portrait.
REFERENCE
La Gioconda is my mistress
The full title of the masterpiece in Italian: Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo, which translates as: portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo. The female name Monna Lisa del Giocondo corresponds to: Ma donna Lisa del Giocondo. In Italian, Ma Donna means "my lady", in an abbreviated form this expression is transformed into Monna or Mona. The second part of Donna's name and the title of the painting, which is considered to be her husband's surname, is del Giocondo in Italian also has a direct meaning and translates as "cheerful, playing" and, accordingly, la Gioconda - "cheerful, cheerful, playing."
SAIDA PANESH
