ダビンチの母、カフカス地方出身の奴隷　伊研究

【フィレンツェ（イタリア）ＡＦＰ＝時事】ルネサンス美術の象徴、レオナルド・ダビンチが、カフカス地方から連れてこられた奴隷女性とイタリア人男性との子どもだったとの新説が１４日、発表された。（写真はレオナルド・ダ・ヴィンチの手稿。資料画像）
　ダビンチは１４５２年、伊フィレンツェ郊外の田舎で生まれ、国内各地で暮らした。１５１９年にフランス国王フランソワ１世の招待でアンボワーズ滞在中に死去した。
　母親は長年、伊トスカーナ地方の小作農だったと考えられてきた。しかし、ナポリ東洋大学のカルロ・ベッチェ教授は、実際はもっと複雑だったと指摘する。
　ベッチェ氏は自らの研究を元に執筆した小説の発売に合わせた記者会見で、「母親はカフカス山脈から連れてこられたチェルケス人奴隷だった」「コンスタンチノープル（現イスタンブール）やベネチアで何度か売られた後、フィレンツェに来た」と述べた。
　母親はフィレンツェで公証人として働くピエロ・ダビンチと出会い、「レオナルドという名の息子」をもうけたという。
　長年ダビンチを研究し、展覧会でのキュレーションも担当してきたベッチェ氏は、フィレンツェ市の公文書館に保管されている文書を調べ、今回の発見に至った。
　同氏が見つけた文書には、ダビンチの父親が書いたものが含まれている。その中で父親は、ダビンチの母カテリナの自由と人間の尊厳を回復するため、奴隷の身分からの解放を法的に求めていた。
　１４５２年付のこの文書は、１４日にフィレンツェの出版社ジュント本社で行われた記者会見でも公開された。
　ベッチェ氏は会見で、「まだ奴隷だったカテリナを愛し、子どもをレオナルドと名付け、解放を支援した男性」によって書かれたものだと強調した。
　これらの発見を下敷きに小説「Ｔｈｅ Ｓｍｉｌｅ ｏｆ Ｃａｔｅｒｉｎａ， ｔｈｅ ｍｏｔｈｅｒ ｏｆ Ｌｅｏｎａｒｄｏ（レオナルドの母カテリナのほほえみ）」が執筆された。
　これまでダビンチは、ピエロとトスカーナの小作農カテリナ・ディメオリッピとの婚外子だったとされていた。今回の研究はダビンチの来歴を大きく変える可能性がある。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/03/15-17:02）

Leonardo da Vinci, the painter of the Mona Lisa and a symbol of the Renaissance, was only half-Italian, his mother a slave from the Caucasus, new research revealed on Tuesday.
Da Vinci's mother had long been thought a Tuscan peasant, but University of Naples professor Carlo Vecce, a specialist in the Old Master, believes the truth is more complicated.
Leonardo's mother was a Circassian slave... taken from her home in the Caucasus Mountains, sold and resold several times in Constantinople, then Venice, before arriving in Florence, he told AFP at the launch of a new book.
In the Italian city, she met a young notary, Piero (Peter) da Vinci, and their son was called Leonardo.
The findings of Vecce, who has spent decades studying da Vinci and curating his works, are based on Florence city archives.
They have formed the basis of a new novel -- The Smile of Caterina, the mother of Leonardo -- while also shedding new light on the artist himself.
Any new discovery about da Vinci is hotly contested by the small world of experts who study him, but Vecce insists the evidence is there.
Among the documents he found is one written by da Vinci's father himself, a legal document of emancipation for Caterina, to recover her freedom and recover her human dignity.
- 'Spirit of freedom' -
This document is dated 1452, and was presented Tuesday at a press conference at the headquarters of publishing house Giunti in Florence.
It was written by the man who loved Caterina when she was still a slave, who gave her this child named Leonardo and (was) also the person who helped to free her, Vecce said.
His assertion offers a radical change of perspective on da Vinci, who was believed to have been the product of an affair between Peter da Vinci and a different woman, young Tuscan peasant Caterina di Meo Lippi.
Born in 1452 in the countryside outside Florence, da Vinci spent his life travelling around Italy before dying in Amboise, France in 1519, at the court of King Francis 1.
Vecce believes the difficult life of his migrant mother had an impact on the work of her brilliant son.
Caterina left Leonardo a great legacy, certainly, the spirit of freedom, he said, which inspires all of his intellectual scientific work.
Da Vinci was a polymath, an artist who mastered several disciplines including sculpture, drawing, music and painting, but also engineering, anatomy, botany and architecture.
He doesn't let anything stop him, Vecce said.
Some may consider the idea that this epitome of a Renaissance man was the product of such a union too good to be true.
But Paolo Galluzzi, a da Vinci historian and member of the prestigious Lincei scientific academy in Rome, said it is by far the most convincing.
Speaking to AFP, he highlighted the quality of the documents discovered by his colleague, adding that there must remain a minimum of doubt, because we cannot do a DNA test.
Galluzzi said he was also not surprised.
The period into which da Vinci was born marks the beginning of modernity, the exchanges between people, cultures and civilisations which gave birth to the modern world, he said.