Da Vinci is 50% Arab, new research claims!!!!!

Saturday December 2, 2006

The Guardian


Anthropologists say they have pieced together Leonardo da Vinci's left index finger print, and it could shed more light on the artist and his mother's supposed Arabic origins, and even help attribute disputed paintings or manuscripts. The reconstruction took three years.

"We knew how Leonardo saw the world and the future ... but who was he?" Luigi Capasso, Anthropology Research Institute director at Chieti University, central Italy, said. "This biological information is about his being human, not being a genius."

The research was based on a first core of photographs of about 200 fingerprints - most of them partial - taken from about 52 papers handled by Da Vinci. The artist often ate while working, and Mr Capasso and other experts said his prints could include traces of saliva, blood or the food he ate the night before, data that could help clear up questions about his origins. Experts said that the fingerprint suggests Da Vinci's mother was of "oriental origin".

"It's not like every population has typical fingerprints, but they do have specific proportions among their signs. The one we found in this fingertip applies to 60% of the Arabic population, which suggests the possibility that his mother was of Middle-Eastern origin," Mr Capasso said.

The idea that Da Vinci's mother could have been a slave who went to Tuscany from Turkey is not new and has been the object of other research.

Carlo Vecce, a professor of Italian literature at Naples' University and a leading expert, said the study appears "founded".

"The fingerprints can tell us if Leonardo was there or if he intervened [on a painting], it's a hint," Mr Vecce said, noting that a fingerprint is not enough proof to attribute a work with certainty.

But he said that such a find doesn't necessarily add much to what is known about Da Vinci.

Associated Press