Leonardo da Vinci
Life
Leonardo was born on 14/15 April 1452 in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno river in the territory of the Medici-ruled Republic of Florence. He was the out-of-wedlock son of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a wealthy Florentine legal notary, and a peasant named Caterina, identified as Caterina Buti del Vacca and more recently as Caterina di Meo Lippi by historian Martin Kemp. There have been many theories regarding Leonardo's mother's identity, including that she was a slave of foreign origin or an impoverished local youth. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense—da Vinci simply meaning "of Vinci"; his full birth name was Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, meaning "Leonardo, (son) of ser Piero (from) Vinci."
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