A book by Angelo Paratico
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Angelo Paratico presents his book “Leonardo da Vinci: A Chinese Scholar Lost in Renaissance Italy”.
After several years of research, Angelo Paratico reached an
astonishing yet very logical conviction: Leonardo Da Vinci was the son
of a Chinese slave, Caterina. Leonardo Da Vinci: A Chinese Scholar Lost
in Renaissance Italy is the story of this historical investigation,
which step by step reveals the mystery of Leonardo’s life as if it were a
modern thriller.The discovery of new pieces of evidence in the state
archives of Florence and the rereading of ancient documents from around
the world, was a compelling process that brings to light what has been
hidden from our eyes, in spite of the ten thousand pages of Leonardo’s
notebooks in our possessions.New perspectives have emerged, which
eventually explained the reasons for the oddities, omissions and
reluctance that have accompanied Leonardo’s previous biographies.
Caterina was very young when she was captured by Mongol raiders and then
spirited out of China to Crimea, from where she was shipped to Venice’s
slave market. She was then sold to the agent of a wealthy Florentine
usurer, Ser Vanni, a client of Leonardo’s father. At that time, oriental
slaves were a common sight all over Tuscany. Most were categorised as
Tartars, a generic term used for all Eastern people under Mongol
domination, including the Chinese.Even Ginevra Datini, the beloved
daughter of the quintessential Renaissance merchant Francesco Datini
(1335–1410), was born to a Tartar domestic slave, a young Mongolian lady
named Lucia, who was working in the merchant’s house. This surprising
fact would never have come to light without the fortuitous find, in the
19th Century, of a treasure trove of Datini’s letters hidden in a secret
partition of his palace in Prato, close to Florence.
The book analyses and discusses Leonardo’s oriental roots using all the
evidence available: he was left handed and was in the habit of beginning
his notebooks from the last page; he was a vegetarian; he had an almost
Buddhist outlook on the world; his paintings show landscapes that are
clearly derived from Chinese painters who had used them centuries
earlier, etc.
And the book proves – as Sigmund Freud in 1910 had already understood –
that Leonardo’s painting of Mona Lisa in the Louvre, the most famous
painting in the world, is actually the dreamlike image of Caterina,
Leonardo’s Chinese mother. The only woman he ever loved.
Angelo Paratico is an Italian writer and historian.
Born in 1955 he studied Chemistry, Classic History and Literature in
Milan and then moved to Hong Kong in 1983 where he still lives with his
family.
He freelances with several newspapers and magazines, more recently with
the South China Morning Post. He has spoken several times at RTHK
Morning Coffee (Hong Kong’s Radio) with Phil Whelan discussing a variety
of topics.
He is one of the founders of the cultural platform and blog Beyond
Thirty-Nine (beyondthirtynine.com) where he writes posts and leads
several cultural projects.