Graphic: Researchers Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato have documented 21 generations of Leonardo Da Vinci’s spouse and children masking 690 yrs and determined 14 residing male loved ones descendants.
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Credit rating: Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato
The stunning results of a decade-very long investigation by Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato offer a powerful basis for advancing a challenge studying Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA.
Their extensive analyze, released by the journal “Human Evolution” (Pontecorboli Editore, Florence), documents with new certainty the continuous male line, from father to son, of the Da Vinci family members (afterwards Vinci), from progenitor Michele (born 1331) to grandson Leonardo (6th generation, born 1452) by way of to nowadays — 21 generations in all, which includes five household branches — and identifies 14 dwelling descendants.
The do the job fills gaps and corrects mistakes in past genealogical investigation into Leonardo’s spouse and children, although giving new discoveries and household tree updates.
This text deepens and enormously expands the discovery introduced in Vinci, Italy, in 2016 by the same Vezzosi and Sabato of several residing but oblique descendants including only two males in immediate line, up to the 19th generation, from a solitary branch of the Vinci family members.
It also supplies for the initial time the documentary facts and information and facts sources above 7 generations to the present day registry business, with perform on additional household branches ongoing.
Leonardo himself had at least 22 half-brothers but no children a new unpublished document shows that “Paolo di Leonardo da Vinci da Firenze” was a scenario of homonymy. The five family members branches are traced from Leonardo’s father, ser Piero (5th generation), and 50 percent-brother Domenico (6th). Given that the 15th generation, information have been collected on in excess of 225 folks. The examine, with the collaboration of the dwelling descendants, contributes to the do the job of the Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Affiliation.
This remarkable, authoritative 690-yr genealogical investigation is elementary to affiliated scientific function Vezzosi and Sabato have underway with the international Leonardo da Vinci DNA challenge, supported by The Richard Lounsbery Foundation. The challenge includes the J. Craig Venter Institute of La Jolla, California and various other large-profile universities and study centers, which includes the Office of Biology of the University of Florence, directed by David Caramelli.
The Y chromosome, passed on to male descendants, is recognized to remain virtually unchanged by 25 generations. Comparing the Y chromosome of present-day male kin with that of their ancestors in historic and contemporary burial websites would both of those verify the uninterrupted loved ones line and certify Leonardo’s personal Y chromosome marker.
Queries potentially probed as soon as Leonardo’s DNA is confirmed include causes powering his genius, facts on his parents’ geographical origins, his physical prowess, untimely growing old, remaining-handedness, eating plan, overall health and any hereditary conditions, and his remarkable vision, synaesthesia and other sensory perceptions.
Comparison of biological data could also perhaps aid confirm the authenticity of artwork and components handled by Leonardo.
The paper, “The New Genealogical Tree of the Da Vinci Family members for Leonardo’s DNA” is printed
in the journal Human
Evolution, DOI: 10.14673/HE2021121077.
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About the authors

Alessandro Vezzosi
Leonardist and artwork historian. He is originally from Vinci, exactly where he started the Leonardo Da Vinci Excellent Museum in 1993, with the Archives of fingerprints and Leonardisms, and with the task for “Leonardo’s Backyard garden”. He is the creator and curator of many exhibitions, publications, conferences and lectures on Leonardo, as properly as on Michelangelo and Raphael, the Backyard garden of Pratolino, “and destinations of memory, modern artwork and layout, from the United States to Japan.
His textbooks have been translated into 19 languages ??(from Leonardo da Vinci: The Brain of the Renaissance, New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1997 to Leonardo Da Vinci: The Total Paintings in Depth, New York, Prestel, 2019).
He started in 1973 the analysis on the areas and spaces and descendants of Leonardo, for what has been configured considering that 2000 as a lookup for Leonardo’s DNA.
[email protected]
Agnese Sabato

Agnese Chairs the Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Affiliation. She graduated in Modern Record from the University of Florence. She collaborates in the organization of exhibitions, conferences, academic routines and institutional initiatives of the Leonardo Da Vinci Excellent Museum (which includes the “Fingerprint Archive”), and in textbooks and review notebooks. She has printed contributions on the record of slaves in Florence and on the myth and impression of Leonardo. She has been doing work due to the fact 1993 exploring the genealogy and residing descendants of the Da Vinci, in collaborations with the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Job considering the fact that 2015.
[email protected]
Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Affiliation

The Affiliation aims to defend and enhanceLeonardo’s cultural heritage and the spaces and destinations related to his existence and work.
Born as an plan in 2017, the non-income (3rd Sector) Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Association was established formally in January 2019 to distribute in Italy and abroad the know-how of Leonardo’s life – by way of study, publishing and exhibition activities bolster investigation, dissemination, documentation and details pursuits on his lifestyle story, with distinct reference to the genealogy of his loved ones safeguard the privateness of his descendants to boost research, investigation and scientific examinations relating to the DNA of Leonardo and his relatives safeguard his moral and ethical heritage, while respecting and safeguarding his cultural heritage.
The project is curating development of the “GeniaDaVinci” database, which will obtain the countless numbers of paperwork gathered for this review and the household tree in progress, to make them obtainable to scholars and the common public.
A quantity of the new paper in Italian will be posted soon with full iconography.
Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Task

Started by anthropologists Brunetto Chiarelli and Henry de Lumley in 2014, targets of the job contain acquiring and sequencing DNA of Leonardo to understand greater his extraordinary skills, notably his visible acuity, through genetic associations. A few-dimensional photographs of Leonardo could maybe be established if ample genome sequence information will become obtainable.
Concluded pilot scientific studies verify the ability to recognize handy biological material from centuries aged is effective of art and other types of relics and samples. The challenge also investigates the microbial flora located on and in artworks. Employing 16S sequencing, the venture has demonstrated a novel acquiring that there are differing bacterial communities when evaluating artwork on wood and canvas, and microbes on stone/marble/plaster sculptures. It has also shown that there are certain genera identified for having oxidative positive strains existing on paintings on wooden and paintings on canvas that could possibly be dependable for deterioration and fading. Much more usually the Project seeks to promote fruitful interactions between, on the just one hand, geneticists, molecular biologists, and microbiologists, and, on the other hand, historians, art historians, artists, and other authorities in cultural heritage.
Funding for this challenge is delivered by The Richard Lounsbery Basis and by the Achelis and Bodman Foundation. 
Relevant information launch: https:/
Human Evolution
Angelo Pontecorboli Editore – Firenze
ISSN 0393-9375 — ISSN On-line 1824-310X
A scientific journal founded in 1969 by Prof. Brunetto Chiarelli, College of Florence.
Handling Editor: Angelo Pontecorboli.
Human Evolution publishes scientific articles on the physical, sociological and cultural evolution of Humankind.
There are quite a few disciplines associated in the study of human evolution which the journal tries to deal with. Unique attention is compensated to molecular evolution, genetics and DNA.
Human Evolution is revealed in English in Florence, Italy in one particular volume for each calendar year divided into 4 issues.
http://www.
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