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Another Jew for Hamas to Hate

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The latest work of the Leonardo da Vinci scholar Carlo Vecce is sure to displease Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. Of course, it does appear as if History itself is piling Pelion upon Ossa — seems those Hamas fellows never get an even break. The tale to be told can be found here:

In all likelihood, Leonardo da Vinci was only half Italian. His mother, Caterina, was a Circassian Jew born somewhere in the Caucasus, abducted as a teenager and sold as a sex slave several times in Russia, Constantinople, and Venice before finally being freed in Florence at age 15. This, at least, is the conclusion reached in the new book Il sorriso di Caterina, la madre di Leonardo, by the historian Carlo Vecce, one of the most distinguished specialists on Leonardo da Vinci.

The official version of da Vinci’s birth is that it was the fruit of a brief fling between the Florentine solicitor Piero da Vinci and a young peasant from Tuscany called Caterina, of whom almost nothing was known. Yet there had long been a seemingly unfounded theory that Leonardo had foreign origins and that Caterina was an Arab slave. Six years ago, professor Vecce decided to kill the rumor for good. “I simply found it impossible to believe that the mother of the greatest Italian genius would be a non-Italian slave,” he told me. “Now, not only do I believe it, but the most probable hypothesis, given what I found, is that Caterina was Jewish.”

Vecce was the right man for the job—he published an anthology of da Vinci’s writings and a biography, Leonardo, translated into several languages, and he collaborated on the exhibition of da Vinci’s drawings and manuscripts at the Louvre and Metropolitan Museum in 2003. He embarked on the research for his latest book during the reconstruction of da Vinci’s library, which is where he found the document that changed everything. Dated Nov. 2, 1452, seven months after Leonardo’s birth, and signed by Piero da Vinci in his professional capacity, it is an emancipation act regarding “the daughter of a certain Jacob, originating from the Caucasian mountains,” and named Caterina. According to the document, Catarina’s owner appears to have been the wife of rich merchant Donato di Filippo, who lived near the San Michele Visdomini church in Florence, and whose usual solicitor for business was Piero da Vinci. The date on the document is underlined several times, as if da Vinci’s hand was shaking as he proceeds to the liberation of the woman who just gave him a child.

Slavery was still current practice in 15th-century Italy, though on a much smaller scale than in the Ottoman Empire. The city of Florence alone had at least 1,000 slaves—among them Russians, Abkhazes, Turks, Serbs, and, like Caterina, Circassians from the Caucasus. Who was this woman who gave birth to one of the greatest geniuses of the Renaissance?…

Yahya? Ismail? Khaled? Moussa? Nary a comment. The Muslim mind can only stand so much reality. But you already knew that.

And let’s close with an enchanting quatrain:

Leonardo! Strange diseases
Strike at madders mixed with lead:
Nun-pale now are Mona Lisa’s
Lips that you had made so red.

Comments

  2. I’m not surprised that the mother of Leonardo da Vinci could of been Jewish, there is a genius gene in the Jewish race. It is estimated there are 15.7 million Jews in the world, which is approximately 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population. Yet 22% of all the nobel prize winners have been Jewish, or have had at least on Jewish parent. This in itself is an incredible achievement for such a small population.

  3. Leave this genius alone !, this freaking Arabs / Muslims want destroy everything, all this beauties , a specially in Most beautiful continent-Europe..

  4. Thank you for the interesting story of a man who lived so many years ago, but is probably talked about every day by someone.

    As for the “mozlum mind only standing so much reality,”….I ask, what mind?

    Sure, mozlums have brains….no one can live without some of that cell matter.
    But when it comes to the mind….islam destroys it.

  5. If Leonardo’s mother was Jewish, wouldn’t that make him Jewish as well, at least by birth? Even if he was brought up as a Catholic?

    • I suppose it would depend on how one defines “Jewish.” Edgardo Mortara was an Italian Catholic priest, but his birth parents were Italian Jews who had lost custody of him when he was very young (the Italian Inquisition seized him when it was discovered that he had been baptized by a young Italian-Catholic housemaid named Anna Morisi).

      • One of the many,many ( antisemitic ) crimes of the Roman Catholic Church . , Bernie . I’m sorry for all the good , God-loving people / members of this church , but can’t have any respect for this church .

      • Sometimes there is no ill intent at all.

        I came across a fascinating story about two women who – independently of each other – were engaged in family history research, and had taken DNA tests via ‘Ancestry’. One woman – who had always thought her family purely Irish Catholic – discovered to her surprise that she had a heaping dollop of Ashkenazi Jewish genes. Another lady – who thought herself entirely ethnically Jewish – discovered she had a large dash of the Irish.

        Long story – I’m not sure how the two ladies eventually and usefully made contact with one another – but by diligent research they discovered that the ‘surprise’ ancestry was not the result of any misbehaviour on the part of their female forebears.

        Rather: their respective fathers (or grandfathers? I can’t recall precisely at the moment) had been accidentally mixed up shortly after their births in a huge New York hospital. One Irish lady gave birth to a boy; one Jewish lady gave birth to a boy; the babies – this was back in the days when babies were kept in rows and rows of little cots in hospital nurseries while their mothers recovered after the births – got mixed up by a careless or over-tired nurse, and the Irish baby went home with the Jewish mum and vice versa. Both men grew up to become practitioners of the faiths of the families in which they were raised… the (Irish) Jew having been duly circumcised and bar-mitzvahed married a Jewish lady and founded a family, the (Jewish) Irishman, a good Catholic, married within the American Irish community and founded a family. And then years later – sadly, after the deaths of both men – their respective descendants finally found out about the mixup….

        • Fascinating, DDA.

          And I just found out that I have some Ashkenazi Jewish heritage myself–after my brother took a “23 & Me” test his wife had given him for Christmas. This was a big surprise! I took an Ancestry test myself and the results were similar. We’re not even sure which side of the family this comes from–but very interesting.

    • From earlier reading, Jewish is passed on through the mother to any children so technically he was born a Jew and remains one for life. Practically speaking if he was raised Catholic, regardless of birthright, he stood more chance of survival, let alone success, in that era.

  6. Another Jew for Hamas to Hate
    ……………………………….

    I never knew this–fascinating. I recently found that I also have some Jewish heritage–this was a surprise.

    And, Muslims would also hate Leonardo da Vinci for being an artist who depicted human beings, as well–including much Christian work–and for being an inventor, which is “Bi’da”.

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