New York Times
December 2, 2006
The key to Leonardo Da Vinci may be his fingerprint. An Italian anthropologist said he had pieced together Leonardo's left index print from marks on dozens of his papers. This finding could help attribute disputed paintings and manuscripts, and also provide a range of elusive biographical information, from the food Leonardo ate to whether his mother was of Arabic origin, The Associated Press reported. The image of the fingerprint is drawn from 200 marks, most of them partial, on about 50 papers Leonardo handled, said Luigi Capasso, director of the Anthropology Research Institute at Chieti University in central Italy, who said his research took three years. He said the prints could include traces of saliva, blood or food. Analysis of this information could help clear up questions about Leonardo's origins, like the theory that his mother was not an Italian but a slave who came to Tuscany from Constantinople. Mr. Capasso's work, first presented last year in a Czech magazine, Anthropologie, is on display in an exhibition in Chieti through March 30. ''It adds the first touch of humanity,'' he said. ''This biological information is about his being human, not being a genius.''
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