|
|
Post by Admin on Mar 16, 2023 3:40:53 GMT
 This picture made available on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, by historian Carlo Vecce shows what Vecce says is the original act of liberation of the slave Caterina, who he believes is the mother of Leonardo da Vinci and notarized by Leonardo's father Piero da Vinci. Vecce says he found it in the State Archives in Florence as described in his latest novel 'Caterina's smile'. (Carlo Vecce via AP) MILAN (AP) — An Italian scholar and novelist has provided fresh fodder for an old debate over the identity of Leonardo da Vinci’s mother, proffering a recently unearthed document as evidence that she arrived on the Italian peninsula as a slave from the Caucasus region of Central Asia. Carlo Vecce, an Italian literature professor at the University of Naples L’Orientale, has revealed his theory in a new novel, “Il Sorriso di Caterina,” or “Caterina’s Smile.” He based his claim on a document discovered in the State Archives in Florence that granted freedom to a girl named Caterina. Leonardo's father notarized the record six months after the birth of the Renaissance genius, who went on to paint masterpieces including the “Mona Lisa.”  Vecce said he originally was intent on proving that Leonardo's mother was not an enslaved person from the East, one long-held theory. “But when the evidence goes in the other direction, one must pay attention,’’ he said. He said he chose to put his research in a novel and not in a scholarly text because he felt an urgency to share his theory with a wider public. “I could joke that no one reads a book with footnotes and a bibliography,’’ the author added. Martin Kemp, an Oxford University art history professor emeritus, co-wrote a 2017 book that identified Leonardo's mother as Caterina di Meo Lippi, a 15-year-old orphan. He said he continued to favor the theory that the girl who gave birth to the masterpiece painter and inventor was a “rural mother.” “There have been a number of claims that Leonardo’s mother was a slave,’’ Kemp said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “This fits the need to find something exceptional and exotic in Leonardo’s background, and a link to slavery fits with current obsessions.” |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Mar 16, 2023 18:12:39 GMT
Could Leonardo da Vinci's mother, Caterina, have been a slave kidnapped from the mountainous Caucasus region of Central Asia? That's the latest hypothesis re-igniting a long-running debate about the identity of this mysterious woman largely lost to history. Historian Carlo Vecce of the University of Naples told reporters at a Tuesday press conference that he discovered a previously unknown document supporting the claim. He's also written a historical novel about Caterina's life (Il Sorriso di Caterina or Caterina's Smile) based on his research.  It's well-established that Leonardo was born in 1452, the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary named Ser Piero d’Antonio and a woman named Caterina. Ser Piero went on to marry a woman named Albiera Amadori, followed by three subsequent marriages after her 1464 death. His various unions produced 16 children (11 of whom survived their early years), in addition to Leonardo, who grew up in his father’s household and received a solid education. As for Caterina, many historians have identified her as a local peasant girl and eventual wife of a kiln worker named Antonio di Piero del Vacca (nicknamed "L'Accattabriga" or "the quarrelsome one"). But that's all we know of her. So naturally, over the years, various alternative identifications have been suggested. Perhaps the most controversial, proposed in 2014 by Italian historian Angelo Paratico, is that Caterina had been a Chinese domestic slave imported from Crimea by Venetian traders and sold to a Florentine banker. Paratico's book, Leonardo da Vinci: A Chinese Scholar Lost in Renaissance Italy, was published the following year. His theory was based in part on research by Renzo Cianchi of the Leonardo Library in Vinci, who proposed that Caterina had been a slave belonging to one of Ser Piero's wealthy friends. According to the New York Times, that is also the hypothesis of a forthcoming book about Leonardo's genealogy by Alessandro Vezzosi, director of Leonardo da Vinci Heritage. Noted Leonardo scholar Martin Kemp of Oxford University took a different tack, arguing in his 2017 book, Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting (co-authored by Giuseppe Pallanti), that Caterina had been a 15-year-old orphan girl. Kemp unearthed documentary evidence that a young girl of that age named Caterina di Meo Lippi had lived less than a mile from Vinci with her baby brother Papo. She could have become pregnant by Ser Piero during one of his hometown visits. Among the evidence: Antonio da Vinci's 1458 tax return, confirming that five-year-old Leonardo was then living in his household. As for Vecce, he acknowledged that his own research had been "guided" by the slave hypotheses put forth by Paratico and Vezzosi, although he initially resisted the idea. But then he discovered a document dated November 2, 1452, six months after Leonardo had been born, emancipating an enslaved Circassian woman named Caterina on behalf of her mistress, the wife of Donato di Felippo di Salvestro Nati. The notary who signed the document was none other than Ser Piero, Leonardo's father.  Historian Carlo Vecce found this original act of liberation of a slave named Caterina, who he believes is the mother of Leonardo da Vinci. It was notarized by Leonardo's father, Ser Piero da Vinci. Carlo Vecce via AP “When I saw that document I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Vecce told NBC News. “I never gave much credit to the theory that she was a slave from abroad. So, I spent months trying to prove that the Caterina in that notary act was not Leonardo’s mother, but in the end all the documents I found went into that direction, and I surrendered to the evidence. At the time, many slaves were named Caterina, but this was the only liberation act of a slave named Caterina [that] Ser Piero wrote in all his long career. Moreover, the document is full of small mistakes and oversights, a sign that perhaps he was nervous when he drafted it, because getting someone else’s slave pregnant was a crime.” A healthy bit of skepticism is warranted here, and Vecce has yet to publish a scholarly paper carefully detailing his findings. (It's apparently in progress.) “Carlo Vecce is a fine scholar," Kemp told NBC News. "His ‘fictionalized’ account needs the sensation of a slave mother. I still favor our ‘rural’ mother, who is a better fit, not least as the future wife of a local ‘farmer.' But an unremarkable story does not match the popular need for a sensational story in tune with the current obsession with slavery.” At the end of the day, Kemp added, “none of the stories are demonstrably proven.” |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Mar 17, 2023 20:53:15 GMT
Horrible Traffic in Circassian Women—Infanticide in Turkey From the Correspondence of the London Post  There has been lately an unusually large number of Circassians going about the streets of Constantinople. Many of them no doubt belonged to the deputation which came to petition the Porte that their country might be taken under the suzerainty of the Sultan. A considerable portion, however, of the Circassians now in the capital have quite another mission than a political one to fulfill. They are here as slave dealers, charged with the disposal of the numerous parcels of Circassian girls that have been for some time pouring into this market. Perceiving that when the Russians shall have reoccupied the coast of the Caucasus this traffic in white slaves will be over, the Circassian dealers have redoubled their efforts ever since the commencement of the peace conferences to introduce into Turkey the greatest possible number of women while the opportunity of doing so lasted. They have been so successful, notwithstanding the prohibition of the trade by the Porte, and the presence of so many of Her Majesty’s ships in the Black Sea, that never, perhaps, at any former period, was white human flesh so cheap as it is at this moment. There is an absolute glut in the market, and dealers are obliged to throw away their goods, owing to the extent of the supply, which in many instances has been brought by steam under the British flag. In former times a “good middling” Circassian girl was thought very cheap at 100 pounds, but at the present moment the same description of goods may be had for 5 pounds! In fact, the creatures are eating their heads off, and must be disposed of at any sacrifice, however alarming. Independently of all political, humane and Christian objections to this abominable state of things, there are several practical ones which have even forced themselves on the attention of the Turks. With low prices a low class of purchasers come into the market. Formerly a Circassian slave girl was pretty sure of being bought into a good family, where not only good treatment, but often rank and fortune awaited her; but at present low rates she may be taken by any huxter who never thought of keeping a slave before. Another evil is that the temptation to possess a Circassian girl at such low prices is so great in the minds of the Turks that many who cannot afford to keep several slaves have been sending their blacks to market, in order to make room for a newly-purchased white girl. The consequence is that numbers of black women, after being as many as eight or ten years in the same hands, have lately been consigned to the broker for disposal. Not a few of t hose wretched creatures are in a state quite unfit for being sold. I have it on the authority of a respectable slave-broker that at the present moment there have been thrown on the market unusually large numbers of negresses in the family way, some of them even slaves of pashas and men of rank. He finds them so unsalable that he has been obliged to decline receiving any more. A single observation will explain the reason of this, which might appear strange when compared with the value that is attached even to an unborn black baby in some slave countries. In Constantinople it is evident that there is a very large number of negresses living and having habitual intercourse with their Turkish masters—yet it is a rare thing to see a mulatto. What becomes of the progeny of such intercourse? I have no hesitation in saying that it is got rid of by infanticide, and that there is hardly a family in Stanboul where infanticide is not practiced in such cases as a mere matter of course, and without the least remorse or dread. Source: New York Daily Times, August 6, 1856, p. 6. |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Mar 20, 2023 18:29:28 GMT
The identity of Leonardo da Vinci’s mother is a “mystery that has intrigued and confounded scholars for centuries”, said The New York Times.
But while little is known other than that she was called Caterina, a new theory has emerged “that is likely to fuel the academic debate”, the paper reported. Historian Carlo Vecce, a Renaissance art expert at Orientale University in Naples, has uncovered documents in the State Archives in Florence that suggest the mother of Italy’s most celebrated artist was an enslaved Circassian woman.
The documents are signed by da Vinci’s father, a young notary called Ser Piero da Vinci, and free a slave called Caterina in autumn 1452, just six months after the artist was born out of wedlock. Vecce told NBC that the document was “full of small mistakes”, indicating that the notary may have been “nervous when he drafted it, because getting someone else’s slave pregnant was a crime”.
Although many slaves were called Caterina, this was the only document recording a slave with that name being freed by the artist’s father, added Vecce, who has released a historic novel, Il Sorriso di Caterina (Caterina’s smile), based on his findings.
Past theories about Caterina’s identity have ranged from “a local peasant, an orphaned teenager of humble birth or a woman of Jewish or Chinese origins”, said The New York Times. Some academics had also suggested that she might have been a slave, said CNN, “but there had never been any documentary evidence to support this theory – until now”.
Not everyone is convinced, however. Martin Kemp, emeritus professor of art history at Oxford University, suggested that the new theory reflects a contemporary desire “to find something exceptional and exotic in Leonardo’s background”, and “a link to slavery fits with current concerns”. Kemp told CNN that Vecce was a “fine scholar” but expressed “surprise” that he had “published his documents in the context of a ‘fictionalised’ account”.
Kemp’s own theory, outlined in his 2017 book Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting, suggests Caterina was a local teenage orphan. But that she may have been a slave is also “a conceivable model”, he said.
|
|
