Leo Di Vinci Family Roots
Leo Di Vinci Family Roots
Leo Di Vinci Family Roots
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Leonardo da Vinci may be known as an Italian Renaissance master, but research into Leonardo's
genealogy traces his family’s roots to Spain and Morocco and reveals how an eccentric
grandfather, Antonio da Vinci, may have influenced the early education of the Tuscan genius.
Leonardo’s grandfather regularly did business in Spain and Morocco and his contacts with the
Arab culture and Islam, his tales about documents written in exotic-looking writing, pigments,
spices and fantastic landscapes, all likely influenced young Leonardo.
“We discovered that Leonardo’s family roots go beyond the narrow boundaries of the Tuscan
village of Vinci,” says Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale in Vinci. Vezzosi
collaborated with Agnese Sabato to publish Leonardo DNA: The Origins, as part of a broader the
Renaissance genius’s Y chromosome, which is passed from father to son.
Documents found by the scholars in the state archives of the Tuscan town of Prato, as well as in
the Archivo Histórico de Protocolos in Barcelona further revealed that Antonio wasn’t
Leonardo’s only ancestor who lived abroad. A notary and brother of Leonardo’s great-great-
grandfather, Giovanni, died in Barcelona in 1406, and Giovanni’s son, Frosino, lived in Spain for
some time, says Leonardo da Vinci historian, Agnese Sabato.