The genius da Vinci was the son of a Caucasian slave. A book recounts the discovery

In “Catherine’s smile. Leonardo’s mother”, the scholar Carlo Vecce rediscovers the maternal origins of the Florentine giant: a foreign prisoner, princess of the Circassians, who instilled in her son her drive for freedom

Describing the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vincithrough one of his characters Stendhal dwells on the “melancholic and tender complexion, abundant in shadow, without splendor in bright colours, triumphant in chiaroscuro”. Light and shadow therefore they are the elements that stand out to the eye of the observer, but a similar nuance of the contours is what also characterizes the life of Leonardo which only thanks to the jumble of recent discoveries is enriched with new clarifying chapters.