PART III
A geography of memory and for genetic research
The thirty-seven profiles demonstrate the direct continuity of the Da Vincis
through one of ser Piero’s sons for twenty-one generations.
Three main periods linked to places emerge as generative climaxes:
– the first, until generation V and at the origin of the VI, takes place generally between
Vinci and Florence, with relationships with the great families and the city
institutions, with ser Piero, Leonardo, and ser Piero’s other nineteen children in all;
– the second, from the VI generation with Domenico, who moves from Florence to
Costareccia (in the countryside of Orbignano,322 a border area), until Paolo di Valentino
(XIV generation). Paolo, with eleven children, emigrates from Vinci to the
(suppressed) Convent of Bottinaccio di Montespertoli, an ideal place for a simple
life divided between nature and experimental agriculture, where a numerous community
of families was created;
– the third, from Tommaso Gaspero Maria (XV generation), which witnessed the
spread of the Vincis (from the XVI generation) in several communes of the middle
Valdarno all the way to the Versilia and the Veneto. Four branches originated
from Tommaso Gaspero Maria, who had eleven children; Leonardo Lorenzo Maria
(XVI.A.); Raffaello Maria (XVI.B.); Emilio (XVI.C.); Angiolo (XVI.D.); from
them originates the dissemination in different communes, starting with Montelupo
Fiorentino. In particular, from Raffaello Maria (B), who became a widower, only one
son was born, Dionisio (XVII.B.), who however will generate ten children, among
whom Tito (XVIII.B.1.) and Giuseppe (XVIII.B.2.), creating two branches; whereas
nine children will be born from Angiolo (XVI.D.).
In this chronological presentation, we have highlighted – however briefly –
some significant elements, like the figure of Caterina, Leonardo’s mother, in view
of her biological and biographical relevance; Leonardo’s relationship with his father
and brothers; clarification of the two Domenicos; and solutions to a number of misunderstandings.
The dispersion of the estate and documents
Up until ser Giuliano (XVI generation), the Da Vincis held important offices
in civic life, in a context of relations that reached even beyond Italy. The family
expansion and the divisions tended to accelerate and add to the disintegration of the
family’s “means”. The fortune accumulated by the enterprising ser Piero (above all
a considerable amount of real estate, generally made up of farmland) was progressively
dispersed because of hereditary divisions among his nine living children; and
also because of some descendants’ donations to religious intitutions.323
The numerous children and descendants are, at the present stage of research,
reduced to Guglielmo’s and Domenico’s branches; from the latter, with Piero di Lorenzo
(VIII generation) will be born the two generative nuclei that live at Casareccia.
The one of Lorenzo di Piero (IX) resumes the ancient tradition of practising as a
notary and holding public offices (Giovanni Piero and ser Anton Giuseppe), with a
strong sense of belonging to the family of Leonardo Da Vinci; but it dies out with
the XIII generation. The one of Bartolomeo di Pietro (IX) is more directly concerned
with farming in the rural dimension of the Montalbano. Between the end of the XVII
century and the end of the XVIII, with the twelfth generation, the family returns to
the small hamlet of Vinci: Pier Matteo di Domenico is buried in the Compagnia. His
several children are also generally involved in agriculture, and some are illiterate.
With Paolo Maria di Valentino (XIV) the move to the Commune of Montespertoli
takes place, to the Convent of
Maria della Pace in Bottinaccio (or Butinaccio
or Botinaccio)324 in the property of the Frescobaldis, where he features as a “tenant”
and lodger. He generates eleven children with his wife Maria Cherubina Niccolai,
a “farm laborer”, thus guaranteeing the family continuity with the sixth child, Tommaso
Gaspero Maria.
The awareness of belonging to Leonardo’s Da Vincis is however present;
the descendants of some branches recount that the memory of documents written
“in a strange way, in reverse”, sold by the progenitor Tommaso (XV) to some
“foreigners”325, was handed down in the family. It is said that the progenitors of Bottinaccio
had been trusted by the Frescobaldis, owner of the farm: they were “paid
little but greatly esteemed”. Uzielli writes that “the master Frescobaldi himself […]
had promised to get him a position” in exchange for the documents “if he had found
them important”.326
Tommaso was the accidental protagonist of the intricate events surrounding the
Vincis’ papers.327 Uzielli, during his field researches, came to know from Valentino’s
(XIII generation) grandchildren who resided in Vinci, that a part of the documents,
jealously handed down from generation to generation, had been taken by “the Vinci
from Montespertoli”.328 The scholar went to Bottinaccio in 1869 and bought what he
found to avoid their being sold or “even burnt”, as he affirms with reference to the
“papers of Dei, of which some were bought by the State, others by count Luigi Passerini,
and the most part sold by the weight…”.329 He finally handed them over “on
24 October 1873 to the Archeology Section of the XI Congress of scientists held in
Rome”, who, in 1880, destined them to the Accademia dei Lincei in whose library
they still are.330