Oriental Slaves in Italy During the Renaissance

A friend asks me if I am not afraid to be locked up in a nuthouse because of my book “Leonardo Da Vinci. A Chinese Scholar Lost in Renaissance Italy” where I put forward the bold idea that Leonardo’s mother was a Chinese slave. Then he further elaborate why he is afraid of my mental state: “You should know that the first Chinese reached Europe in the late XVI and the beginning of the XVII centuries, sent by the Jesuits who came to Macau, Alessandro Valignano, Matteo Ricci, Martino Martini.”

This friend knowns a bit about oriental history but he has not yet read my book. But then, afraid to have offended me with his outburst, tries to mitigate the slap adding that anyway all historians who write about Leonardo remind him the story of the three blind men asked to describe the elephant. I am not upset with him, because this is an opinion which is widespread among historians: strange to say but most of them ignore domestic slavery, a phenomenon which was widespread in Europe. This black-out in spite of all contrary proof is so common that one cannot avoid thinking that we should rather talk of a case of mental suppression.

An international seminar was held in Prato, Italy, in 2014, organized by the Francesco Datini Foundation, with historians coming from all over Europe. Their contributions were then collected and printed in two multilingual volumes, having the title of “Slavery and servitude in the European economy. XI–XVIII centuries.”

Such studies based on archival explorations were in fashion starting from the last part of the XIX century. I just quote here an illustrious historian who has been completely forgotten in Italy: Luigi Cibrario (1802-1870) who authored several books – all very well researched and detailed – among them in 1868, a “Della Schiavitù e del Servaggio” in which he presented his discoveries of documents concerning the purchase of slaves, with relevant court action and punishments meted out for rebellion and murder. In several cases were releasing from servitude put into the testament by their masters, in order to go in front of St Peter with a clean conscience. From such studies we can notice that the Catholic Church was never against slavery, quite the contrary! Even St Augustin had attributed slavery to the personal sins of men and women and then several priests and bishops owned slaves. In fact slaves were on ships belonging to the Holy See until the XVIII century. Be that as it may, the section of slavery as a phenomena which mostly interests us in studying the origins of Leonardo Da Vinci’s mother is that known as ‘domestic slavery’ which developed in the Mediterranean area after the devastating passage of the plague in 1347. The plague had come from Crimea and then spread all over Europe with a dead rate even higher than 60%. That was a world-changing event which caused a great socio-economic revolution which is still influencing, even today, our society. Plague marked the end of the feudal society and serfdom. Great revolts were staged by poor workers, like that of the Ciompi in Florence and few years later in England, where the poor went close to topple the monarchy. That period heralded the beginning of a golden age for paid workers; the mechanical sciences received a boost because of the lack of manpower and women demanded to get a salary like men. Cities were empty and nobody was tilling the soil. It was then that slaves, known collectively as Tartars, from Crimea were imported by Genoese and Venetians from Tana – today’s Azov – on the Black Sea and a terminus of the Silk Road. Crimea was then part of the Mongol empire, like China itself. And even the Polo family kept a station in Sudak (Soldaia) and from Marco Polo’s testament, still kept in Venice, we learn that he took back a Mongol slave called Peter who was thereby set free. Until the beginning of the XV century – close to 90% – of the imported girls to be used as domestic helpers were classified as tartars, with the remaining 10% being Russians, Arabs and Greeks.

The Chinese Yuan Dynasty was actually Mongolian, founded by Kublai Khan. The confusion between Mongol and Chinese is understandable since large part of Chinese territory was under Mongol domination and as such remained up to 1368 when the Chinese expelled them, establishing the Ming Dynasty. But even if they were dethroned in 1368 Mongols kept a tight control on China’s boundaries and in fact they would have captured her once more in 1405 if not because of the dead by plague by Timur, a descendant of Genghis Khan, after getting out of his capital, Samarcanda, heading to China with his powerful army.
The traffic of slaves flourished until 1453 when Turks captured Constantinople changing its name into Istanbul, shut the route. Their price, according to their fairness, could vary from 20 to 80 gold florins per head, and their age was between 8 and 20 years old. They were mostly classified are Tartars in the documents and in few cases only they were indicated as ‘orta kataiorum’ that is to say originating from China.

Sexual violence and abuses were common in Italian homes and Italian housewives hated them because of their youth could attract the attention of their old husbands, even Francesco Petrarca called them: ‘Enemies in our houses.’

Joseph Needham (1900-1995) author of a monumental History of Science and Civilization of in China in 22 books mentions the useful contribution of genes by Mongols and Chinese girls to the Europe. With my book I try to prove that Caterina, mother of Leonardo Da Vinci, was raped by Ser Piero Da Vinci, Leonardo’s father, while working in the house of one of his client, Ser Vanni. To hide the scandal he moved the girl from Florence to Vinci. And it was right there, in Vinci, that she gave birth to one of the most mysterious and genial men ever existed.
A longer version of this article was published on the Blog of Dino Messina – Corriere della Sera.

Il fenomeno della schiavitù domestica ci aiuta a capire l’ipotesi storica sulla madre cinese di Leonardo

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Ginevra de’ Benci, or Fioretta Gorini? Or Caterina, his mother?

The Lichtenstein Lady

The so called portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. – also known as The Lichtenstein Lady – is seen by most art critics as the first portrait created by the 22 years old Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 – 1519).

The influence of Flemish painters: Jan Van Eyck (c.1390-1441), Hans Memling (1435-1494) and Petrus Christus (1410-1472/73) here is extremely strong.  This portrait is a haunting, gloomy picture, possessing a magnetic spell similar to that exerted by the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum. Once you stare into her sad eyes, you will never be able to forget her: she will remain carved into your subconscious. It is kept under bulletproof glass with armed guards keeping a close watch on it.

According to Andrè Suarès[1] this picture lack the ‘the tears and music of love’ and she is similar to an algebraic equation, according to Serge Bramly.[2]

It is a very small picture on a Lombardy’s white poplar wood panel, like the Mona Lisa, having the size of 39 x 37 cm but the lower part of it, as well as the right side, was sawn away by at least 8 inches, and looking at the reverse of the painting we can see the mutilation revealed in the wreath. Up to the year 1866 this picture was assigned to Lucas Cranach (1472-1553) and only after that it was correctly attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci by Art Historian Gustav Waagen. [3]

At close examination the slit of The Lichtenstein Lady’s bodice had been overpainted. Probably she was keeping her hands close to her breast or perhaps the top of some flowers were ending there. There is a sketch of hands made by Leonardo in the Windsor Collection which could fit it but that is just a wide guess.

This attribution has been confirmed recently by forensic scientists who have found Leonardo Da Vinci’s fingerprints on it;  we know that Leonardo used his fingers to smooth details of his paintings and his fingers were used for the face of  The Lichtenstein Lady and for the juniper leaves on her back.

 

Ailsa Mellon Bruce

This impressive painting was bequeathed to the National Gallery by the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund. Ailsa Mellon Bruce (1901 – 1969) was the daughter of Andrew W. Mellon (1855 – 1937) a controversial, roguish, but extremely successful financier who, after amassing a huge fortune during WW1, began collecting old masters’ paintings. He then became Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932 and U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1932 until 1933. In 1930 he was quick to seize a golden opportunity offered by Stalin’s indifference to arts: the Soviet dictator had ordered to the directors of the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad to raise cash by selling artworks. Mellon took home 21 incredible paintings paying what was for him a pittance, just to mention a couple: Raphael’s Alba Madonna and Jan Van Eyck’s The Annunciation. In 1936 Mellon convinced President Roosevelt to build the National Gallery of Art in Washington and donated his collection to the American people, even financing and supervising the construction of its imposing building.

In 1967 his daughter, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, purchased Leonardo da Vinci’s Lichtenstein Lady from the princely House of Lichtenstein, paying five million dollars for it. A hefty sum of money in those days: possibly the equivalent of 80 US millions today but still a bargain. How this portrait got it into Lichtenstein in the first place it is anybody’s guess.

 

Ginevra de’ Benci?

Tradition has that this is a portrait of the seventeen years old Ginevra de’ Benci, daughter of Amerigo de’ Benci, painted on the occasion of her marriage with Luigi di Bernardo di Lapo Niccolini, on 15 January 1474. In Florence Ginevra not only was a famous beauty but also an accomplished poet, possessing a classic instruction. We have two sonnets by Lorenzo de’ Medici in which her charm and beauty is celebrated.

That Leonardo Da Vinci was a friend of the brother of Ginevra, Giovanni, it is certian because he left his unfinished Adoration of the Magi – today at the Uffizi Museum, Florence – in the house of Amerigo de’ Benci, Giovanni and Ginevra’s father, when in 1482 he departed to Milan.

Giorgio Vasari in his Life of Leonardo Da Vinci dated 1550 (second edition 1568) mentions that he had painted a wonderful portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci[4] and also the Anonimo Magliabecchiano  and the Book of Antonio Billi confirm it.[5]

Granted that Leonardo had indeed painted her portrait, how can we be sure that this is really Ginevra de’ Benci? The fact is that we are not sure, as in most of the things related to Leonardo Da Vinci, even if most of the art critics think that this lady is indeed Ginevra de’ Benci, simply because at her back there is a juniper tree, ginepro in Italian, therefore Ginevra. A rather weak argument and when we look at her it is hard to believe that this lady was only seventeen years old and that she was a great beauty. Another portrait believed to be Ginevra de’ Benci is kept at the National Gallery of Washington, attributed to Lorenzo di Credi, a friend and fellow student of Leonardo Da Vinci, but it represents a different person.

This lady, more than a girl, looks a mature woman and, furthermore, she seems like going to a funeral, more than going to her wedding: she wears no jewelry on her neck and carries a funereal black sash on her shoulder. If really this work was delivered by Leonardo on the date of her marriage, as it is claimed, then he should have begun it at least one year earlier, when she was only sixteen years old. But we know for a fact that Leonardo could not be pushed to work fast, not even by kings and queens. Quite the contrary!

 

Bernardo Bembo

(On the left, the wreath on the back of the Lichtenstein Lady. On the right a reconstruction as it should have been before the cut)

It is claimed that this painting was commissioned by the Venetian Ambassador Bernardo Bembo (1433-1519) – a friend of the Benci – because his family motto was Virtvs and Honor (Virtue and Honor), with a laurel and palm, which is similar to that on the back of the painting. Bernardo was married with Elena Marcello, who gave him several children including the famous humanist Pietro Bembo. There is a garland painted in the back of The Lichtenstein Lady with the words Virtvtem Forma Decorat [6] normally translated as ‘Beauty adorns Virtue’ but it seems a interpretation forced by the intention to confirm our assumptions. The words are joining together a laurel a small juniper and a palm. The laurel and the palm were present in Bembo’s own device. Because of the wreath on the back – not painted by Leonardo Da Vinci – of this picture art critics accept the connection with Bembo.

Legend has that as soon as Bernardo Bembo arrived in Florence he fell in love with the newly married Ginevra de’ Benci. It is claimed that it was a just a platonic, intellectual love even if, in spite of his motto, Bembo was certainly not a gentleman. We have several letters he penned to the Medici in Florence requesting favors and money for himself and for his family, thus  creating a clear conflict of interest with the interests of the Country he was representing.  He was very close to the circle of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici and in fact he did business with them which had little to do with diplomacy, borrowing large sums of money.[7]

Bembo’s first stint in Florence lasted until the month of May 1476, and he struck a great personal friendship with Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici. Proof is that on 15 October, 1510 when Giuliano de’ Medici, the Duke of Nemours and patron of Leonardo Da Vinci, was in Venice, he did stay as a guest in Bembo’s house.

Bernardo Bembo in Venice on the 23rd of December 1474 when he was appointed Ambassador to Florence by the Venetian Senate, he reached Florence in January 1475 because there he witnessed the famous giostra which had inspired the Stanze by Angelo Poliziano: games organized to celebrate the league between Florence, Milan and Venice.

Because of such close relationship with the Medici, the Venetian Senate sent Bembo back to Florence as their representative in July 1478 for a second time, right after the murder of Giuliano de’ Medici during the Pazzi conspiracy. He will stay in Florence for two more years but the levity and happiness of the first stay could not be repeated because of the different situation in the Italian Peninsula and in Florence.

Ginevra was married on January 14, 1474 and Bembo arrived as Venetian Ambassador in 1475. The Florentine year was beginning ab incarnatione and therefore the true date of Ginevra de’ Benci’s marriage should be moved ahead of one year to January 14, 1475 it is thus impossible – knowing the slow progress of Leonardo’s work – that it was commissioned by Bembo for the marriage of his platonic sweetheart and then completed in a matter of days, as most of the books dedicated to Leonardo Da Vinci are claiming.

Because of this clear date-sequence it seems that Bernardo Bembo had nothing to do with The Lichtenstein Lady portrait . Then what about seeing this as a posthumous portrait of Fioretta Gorini (1453? – 26 April 1478)?

Fioretta Gorini or Lucrezia Donati?

At the Bargello Museum in Florence there is a marble bust attributed to Andrea del Verrocchio (1435 – 1488) – Leonardo da Vinci’s teacher – believed to be Fioretta Gorini. She is holding a bunch of flowers close to her chest (fioretti or fiorellini in Italian). Carlo Pedretti is one of the few art critics believing that it actually represents one of the favorite of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Lucrezia Donati (1447 –1501) who had married Niccolò Ardinghelli, an exiled  merchant who died in 1496.[8] This opinion by Pedretti has merits, because Lorenzo de’ Medici, after marrying Clarice Orsini for state reasons had always her in his mind and there is trace of a commission from Lorenzo to Verrocchio to paint her portrait.[9]  But a point in favour of the attribution to Fioretta Gorini is the same, somber, funereal, expression on the portrait of The Lichtenstein Lady at the National Gallery. We believe that this marble bust could well be one of the few sculptures in existence by Leonardo da Vinci and we are not the first to make such claim[10] and we do believe that there are strong supporting arguments

Virtually nothing is known about Fioretta Gorini, this mistress of Giuliano de’ Medici, but her surname seems not Florentine. Fioretta  gave birth to Giulio de’ Medici on May, 26 1478, pope Clement VII, dyeing at childbirth, one month after the murder of her lover Giuliano de’ Medici.  It is likely that Bembo had met the courtesan Fioretta Gorini there, not only Lucrezia Donati.

The Latin motto on the back could well refer to the virtuous Fioretta (or Lucrezia Donati?), not to the virtuous Ginevra who had repelled the unrecorded amorous advances of Bernardo Bembo.  The portrait of The Lichtenstein Lady could rather be the portrait of Fioretta Gorini or Lucrezia Donati.

The son of Fioretta was taken to a chapel to be baptized by Antonio Giamberti da Sangallo (1443-1516), an architect and a close friend of Giuliano, and thus presented to his uncle, Lorenzo de’ Medici, who accepted him into the Medici’s household.

Having been so close to Lorenzo and his deceased brother Giuliano, Bernardo Bembo may have thought a sensitive move to commission to Leonardo Da Vinci a portrait of the deceased Fioretta, to be given to her orphan son, the future pope Clement VII. Hence the origin of the back of the painting, reminding Bembo personal device, and possibly because of the subject we can see a reason for Giulio de’ Medici to get rid of that painting, not wanting to let people know that his mother had been a courtesan.

 

Was Caterina, the Chinese slave and mother of Leonardo Da Vinci, the living model?

The face of The Lichtenstein Lady has an extraordinary Chinese look, which is hard to miss. Just walk in the street of any Chinese city, including Hong Kong and Singapore, and you will meet several Lichtenstein Lady look-alike, minus the blondish hairs.

That Leonardo painted a portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci is sure, but it seems also sure that it has been lost or that it is hanging in a museum gallery with a wrong attribution. This is a leonardesque mystery similar to the head of Monna Lisa del Giocondo, which Leonardo painted but which has nothing to do with the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.  During the Renaissance when an artist received a commission for a portrait he was not free to deliver something which would not please the sitter, like in our days did Francis Bacon’s unflattering portrait of Queen Elisabeth II.  When Leonardo painted in Milan the Lady with the Ermine for Ludovico Sforza he painted the real Cecilia Gallerani and when he painted another of his favorites, Letizia Crivelli, in a picture known as La Belle Ferronnière he had the real lady portrayed.

It seem to us that with the Lichtenstein Lady Leonardo da Vinci was painting a similar dead woman represented in the marble bust, changing somehow her facial expression but keeping the same silken blouse and the same hairstyle and bloodless skin.

The Medici had a tradition of keeping their mistresses secret and they may have not revealed to Verrocchio and Leonardo the true identity of the lady they were representing nor they real appearance. This is a process which Giuliano de’ Medici duke of Nemour will follow year later in commissioning a portrait of Pacifica Brandani to Leonardo, which is now known as the Mona Lisa of the Louvre.[11]

For such commissions there was no need to deliver a portrait which resembled the dead person; it could be idealized according to the wishes of the artist. In the case of the Mona Lisa Leonardo had painted a dreamlike image of his mother’s smile, but he may have in fact used his mother as a sitting model.  In this picture the Chinese characters of her face are even stronger than in the case of the Mona Lisa and a further hint lays the fact that the face of Leonardo in the Adoration of the Magi is very similar to the one we see here in the Lichtenstein Lady. Leonardo may have sketched his mother, Caterina, during one of his visits to Vinci and then he transposed her features into the painting of a dead lady who had given birth to a Medici, destined to the papacy. The Chinese traits of The Lichtenstein Lady are clear and impressive, then the only concession he seems to have made to the client who commissioned the picture seem to be her blonde hairs, a symbol of fairness in those years even if the the art of coloring hairs was widespread since Roman times.

Thus the Latin motto on the back could be raised to a loftier signification: the wretched Chinese slave that was his mother, in spite of her unfamiliar face, was to be honored up to our days because of her virtue.

 

[1] Suarès Voyage de Condottiere, Paris, 1931.

[2] Bramly, S. Leonardo. The Artist and the Man, 1991, p. 150.

[3] Pedretti C. Leonardo & Io, Milan, 2008, p. 88.

[4] Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Eminent Painters and Architects, 1st Ed. Florence, 1550. He drew Ginevra, the daughter of Amerigo Benci, a beatiful portrait, and then abandoned the work of the friars, who recalled Filippino, though he was prevented from finishing it by death.

[5] Anonimo Magliabecchiano (known also as Anonimo Gaddiano). In Florence he painted a portrait of Ginevra d’Amerigho Benci from Nature, a work which was so finished that it seemed not a portrait but Ginevra herself.

[7] Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Fond. Treccani, Vol. 8 1966.

[8] Pedretti, Carlo Leonardo & Io, Milan, 2008, p. 501.

[9] Walter, Ingeborg Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo Tempo, Rome, 2005.  Dj legname, drentovi la fighura della testa della Lucherezia de’ Donatj

[10] Hans Mackowsky, William Suida et al. See also http://beyondthirtynine.com/was-leonardo-da-vinci-the-author-of-the-marble-bust-lady-with-a-bunch-of-flowers-kept-at-the-bargello-museum/

[11] Paratico A. Leonardo Da Vinci. A Chinese Scholar Lost in Renaissance’s Italy, Lascar, p.60.

Was Leonardo Da Vinci really born on 15 April 1452 at 3 AM? No… and read why.

Here is another leaf taken from my book:

Leonardo Da Vinci. A Chinese Scholar Lost in Renaissance Italy Lascar Publising, 2015.

http://www.lascarpublishing.com/leonardo/

 

A grandson was born to me, son of Ser Piero my son on 15 April, Saturday, at three in the night. He was named Leonardo. Was baptised by the priest Piero di Bartolomeo da Vinci.

This is the initial part of a dramatic note written by Leonardo Da Vinci’s grandfather, Antonio Da Vinci, found by the German historian, Emil Moller, in 1933 on a logbook belonging to the Da Vinci’s family. Here are Antonio’s words in ancient Tuscan and in a complete form:

1452. Nachue un mio nipote, figliuolo di ser Pietro mio figliuolo, adi’ 15 d’aprile in sabato, a ore 3 di notte. Ebbe nome Lionardo. Batezollo pietre Piero di Bartolomeo da Vincci, Papino di Nanni Bannti, Meo di Tonino, Piero di Malvoltto, Nanni di Renzo, Arigho di Giovanni Tedescho, monna Lisa di di Domenichi di Brettone, monna Antonia di Giuliano, monna Niccholosa del Barna, mona Maria, figliuola di Nanni di Renzo, monna Pippa di [Nanni di Lorenzo – these two words cancelled] di Previchone.

This note is very important because confirms the birth of Leonardo Da Vinci in the year 1452 and furthermore it reveals the day of his birth, 15th of April, as well as the hour. His mother, Caterina and his father, Ser Piero (probably absent) were not mentioned.

It is, after all, a reminder of how little we know about Leonardo and how easy is for historians to misunderstand facts, and here I explain what I mean. In most biographies dedicated to Leonardo published after 1938  – the year Emil Möller made public his great finding – we read that Leonardo was born on the 15th of April at 3 of the night, which stands for  3 in the morning.

This is wrong because, during the Renaissance, when someone wrote ‘3 of the night’ he actually meant something different. Following the calculation system used at that time the beginning of a new day was set when, in the evening, the bells of the Ave Maria tolled. It is a system which disappeared only after the French Revolution.

On April 15, the sunset in Vinci was at around 6.50 pm, and half an hour later the bells of the church tolled. From there, one should count three hours, getting to around 22.20 pm. Furthermore and because of this Leonardo’s birth date, strictly speaking, should be regard the day as April 14th, at 22:20 p.m. Even if, for simplicity sake, it is better to leave things as they stand otherwise most of historical dates should be re-adjusted.

An example – which has no weight for Leonardo’s birthdate – it is the fact that in Florence, like in several other cities in Europe, the first day of the year was not January 1st but actually the day of the Feast of the Annunciation by an Angel to Mary that is ab incarnatione on March 25. Therefore when we read that something happened in Florence, say on the 20 February 1501, the real date was 20 February 1502, following our calendar.

 

Is Medjugorje Devil’s work or cheating on a massive scale?

 

UPDATED 10 June 2015

Pope Francis gave a hint Tuesday about his take on the reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary at the Medjugorje shrine in southern Bosnia, dismissing a reliance on regular visions of the Madonna  as mere “novelty-seeking” for the faithful.

Francis spoke during his morning homily, three days after making a day trip to Sarajevo. En route home, Francis told reporters the Vatican would soon decide whether to formally recognize the Medjugorje phenomenon as authentic.

In his homily, Francis dismissed those “who always need novelty in their Christian identity” and say: “But where are the visionaries who tell us today about ‘The letter that the Madonna will send tomorrow at 4 p.m.?'”

“This isn’t Christian identity,” he said. “God’s last word is called Jesus and nothing more.”

The Medjugorje apparition has been disputed since 1981, when six youths said they had regularly seen visions of the Virgin there. Unlike Fatima in Portugal or Lourdes in France, the Vatican has been cautious about calling the sightings authentic. Neither Rome nor the local diocese has approved Medjugorje as an official shrine site and the Vatican has told dioceses not to organize official pilgrimages there.

That hasn’t stopped the remote village 70 miles (110 kilometers) southwest of Sarajevo from thriving from the financial boost brought by more than 30 million faithful who have visited since 1981.

The local church itself has cast doubt on the sightings, in part because one of the visionaries says the apparitions have continued regularly for over a quarter century.

In 2010, then-Pope Benedict XVI formed an international commission to study the Medjugorje phenomenon. On Saturday, Francis said commission’s report had been taken up by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, although the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said it hadn’t yet been discussed.

Lombardi acknowledged that Francis was probably referring to Medjugorje in his homily but he stressed that his brief mention was not the Vatican’s final word. Francis’ off-the-cuff comments “are not an official pronouncement that gives a wide-ranging and articulated doctrinal or pastor indications,” he said.

 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 22 April 2013

It all begun in March 1965 when the Vatican ruled that half of the parishes of Erzegovina, up to then administered by a Franciscan order of friars, would fall under the Bishop of Monstar-Duvno. The Friars took it badly and refused to comply basing on traditions dating back five centuries.

In 1967 Rome rejected their claims and again ordered to carry on with the  handover. By 1975 pope Paul VI issued a decree known as ‘Romanis Pontificibus’ dated 6 June 1975 published by the Propaganda Fide, but one year later the dispute was still dragging on.  Because of the death of Paul VI, and then the short papacy of John Paul I in Rome they put aside the problem but with the death of Tito (4th of May, 1980) the teological row too also political colours. It was then that the boys started to see Mary, who incredibly took side with the rebellious Franciscans, against their Bishop.

A friend of mine was in Medjugorje a few weeks ago on a humanitarian mission. She saw what a circus it has become, but she came back with mixed feelings about the alleged sanctity of that place. Later, on one of the pictures shot there by her sister there was a strange red dot and looking at the clouds a rough figure of Mary could be noticed. In normal conditions the red dot could be dismissed as a planet or a reflex caused by the lens and as far as the clouds are concerned, all clouds if watched long enough could take

any shape our fantasy dictates. After seeing that picture I could remember a lady living near my home in Italy. In 1983 she went to Majugorje and came back shocked. She became a then a very religious person, because she said she has seen Satan. A scary sight indeed, scary enough to push her to get back to Church! Her trip was made on a bus with other pilgrims guided by a catholic priest who claimed to be an exorcist. Checking on Google I had found several similar pictures posted by people who had been there and then claim to have seen strange lights, rosary beads taking the color of gold, strange lights and the sun dancing, as it did at Fatima (an event accepted by the Catholic Church and witnessed by 50.000 people). The Catholic Church seems divided on this subject but the current position is that what is happening in Medjugorje, Herzegovina, is a fraud.

Some even think that it might be the work of the Devil, this at least is the opinion of the bishop of Isernia, Andrea Gemma, an 82 years old chief exorcist, a man who do not mince words. He says: “In Medjugorje everything happens in function of money: pilgrimages, lodging houses, sale of thickets. The whole sham is the work of the Devil. It is a scandal!” John Paul II never visited the place nor ever expressed any wish to get there.

 

Jesus said that we should judge a tree by the fruits it bears. In Medjugorje all begun on 25 June 1981 when six children told a priest they were seeing Our Lady. Since then this has happened ten of thousand of times but not a single miracle made by that ‘spiritual entity’ was ever confirmed. Predictions were made, some quite catastrophic, like the destruction of Germany and the USA (prophecy of September 1981) and the Pope seeking refuge in Turkey! but luckily nothing of such sort had ever happened.

 

The six children were caught lying several times on tape, and team of scientists who wanted to investigate the strange phenomenon happening there were always, with different excuses, turned away. Some catholic commentators seem to agree on the fact that the main message coming our of Mejugorjes is one of disobedience to the Church of Rome, in fact the six seers since the beginning refused to follow instructions set by Church’s authorities and bishops. One of the seers is by now married to a former Miss USA and all of them are rich, owning hotels, living in large mansions provided with swimming pools. The local bishop was kidnapped on April 2, 1994 and he was released only thank to the intervention of UN Troops.

Another constant message coming out from there is that of the relativity of all religions. But, as it was pointed out since the Middle Age, if you think that all religions are good, then you don’t believe in any of them. Medjugorje could be simply dismissed as a fraud on epic scale which is provoking phenomena of mass hysteria.

continued regularly for over a quarter century.

In 2010, then-Pope Benedict XVI formed an international commission to study the Medjugorje phenomenon. On Saturday, Francis said commission’s report had been taken up by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, although the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said it hadn’t yet been discussed.

Lombardi acknowledged that Francis was probably referring to Medjugorje in his homily but he stressed that his brief mention was not the Vatican’s final word. Francis’ off-the-cuff comments “are not an official pronouncement that gives a wide-ranging and articulated doctrinal or pastor indications,” he said.

 

 

The First Airborne Man was Chinese, not Zoroaster, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Pilot.

This is a short excerpt taken from my book Leonardo Da Vinci. A Chinese Scholar Lost in Renaissance Italy. Lascar Publishing 2015 – Bookazine for HKD 150.

http://www.lascarpublishing.com/Leonardo/

The Greek legend of Icarus was just a myth from an engineering point of view; clearly with wax and feathers one cannot get very far.

Leonardo Da Vinci left several construction drawings about flying devices and, according to Girolamo Cardano in his De Subtilitate he tried but failed to get airborne in Milan, then he tried second time at Mt Ceceri at Peretola, near Florence. The pilot in both cases could have been Tommaso Masini, nicknamed Zoroaster, a native of Peretola, so much so the people of Peretola put a commemorative slab about such first successful human flight, even if there are no proofs about it.

What seems certain is that the Chinese were flying long before the time of Leonardo and we have an extraordinary witness testifying it: Marco Polo (1254–1324).  In China, giant kites were built since the third century BC, which were capable of lifting men off the ground.  Joseph Needham in his monumental work on Science and Civilization in China elaborate this point: see Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol. IV, pp. 576–80. There is overwhelming evidence proving that the Chinese were the first to having a man airborne.

First let us explain why so few people, even Chinese, know about Marco Polo’s description of human flight. When Marco Polo dictated his memoirs, while a captive of the Genoese, to Rustichello da Pisa who noted them down in a sort of French, they were a great success and were copied and passed around. But when the first edition of il Milione of Marco Polo went into print in 1496 as the Livre que est appellé le Divisement dou monde de Marc Pol the editor had to decide which manuscript was trustable and which was not, choosing among several. The point about men flying in China was thus left out for unknown reasons.

This passage was later inserted into it for the first time with the book Marco Polo The Description of the World, Moule and Palliot,  vol. I, 1938. pp. 356 ff. This edition is today considered the most complete and most authoritative translation of the book of Marco Polo and it include also a manuscript that was found by Sir Percival David (1892–1964) in the Cathedral de Toledo, in Spain.

That manuscript was a Latin copy written in 1795 based on a manuscript dating to about 1400. Arthur Christopher Moule transcribed it and complete with the Latin text was published in 1935. A. C. Moule combined seventeen different versions of the Marco Polo manuscripts into one document and put all words that are not found in the other versions into italics, an extraordinary scholarly achievement!

Here is the passage of Chinese flying men as Marco Polo had seen them in China:

 

And so we will tell you how when any ship must go on a voyage, they prove whether her business will go well or ill. The men of the ship will have a hurdle, that is a grating, of withers, and at each corner and side of this framework will be tied a cord, so that there be eight cords, and they will all be tied at the other end to a long rope.

Next they will find some fool or drunkard and they will bind him on the hurdle, since no one in his right mind or with his wits about him would expose himself to that peril. And this is done when a strong wind prevails.

Then the framework being set up opposite the wind, the wind lifts it and carries it up into the sky, while the men hold on by the long rope. And if, while it is in the air, the hurdle leans towards the way of the wind, they pull the rope to them a little so that it is set again upright, after which they let out some more rope and it rises higher. And if again it tips, once more they pull in the rope until the frame is upright and climbing, and then they yield rope again, so that in this manner it would rise so high that it could not be seen, if only the rope were long enough.

The augury they interpret thus: if the hurdle going straight up makes for the sky, they say that the ship for which the test has been made will have a quick and prosperous voyage, whereupon all the merchants run together for the sake of sailing and going with her. But if the hurdle has not been able to go up, no merchant will be willing to enter the ship for which the test has been made, because they say that she could not finish her voyage and would be oppressed by many ills. And so that ship stays in port that year.

Chinese were using kites, perhaps train of kites or, as we call them today, power-kites.

What is new about Leonardo. A look at the figure of his father, Ser Piero Da Vinci.

My revelation about the figure of Leonardo’s mother, possibly a Chinese slave or orta kataiorum that is ‘originating from China’ using the Latin of the notaries of the time, was what caused a media storm at the beginning of December 2014. I first announced my findings to Phil Whelan at Morning Brew Radio RTHK3 and then to the South China Morning Post.

My book Leonardo Da Vinci. A Chinese Scholar lost in Renaissance Italy is now on sale in Bookazine, here in Hong Kong and, for those willing to read it but who are not in Hong Kong, it  is also available through ABE books, through my publishers, Lascar Publishing. Strictly speaking my book is not a biography dedicated to Leonardo’s mother, Caterina. But  I can humbly claim to be offering some original and new theories concerning Leonardo Da Vinci’s life and works, even if I am always sticking to documents or, in absence of them, on credible evidence and logic. One of my views which is going against the current is about Leonardo Da Vinci’s father, Ser Piero Da Vinci, a thing that Sigmund Freud, in his 1910 essay Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood had distinctly suspected.

In all existing biographies concerning Leonardo Da Vinci, the figure of his father, by profession a notary of the Florentine Republic, is generally seen in a positive light. But writing my book I came to the inescapable conclusion that he had been a very bad parent, a dishonest man and a crook who had only money, sex and power in sight. Further to this he did not care for his son, Leonardo, leaving him exposed to abuses and who never cared about fully legalized his position within the Da Vinci family.

The life of Leonardo Da Vinci remains a mystery to our days, in spite of the thousand of pages from his notebooks in our possession. Documents which tell us that he was born on 15 April 1452 in Vinci, Tuscany, out of wedlock and unwanted, the result of a casual sexual encounter between Ser Piero di Antonio Da Vinci – a successful notary of the Florentine Republic – and, almost certainly, a domestic slave girl called Caterina. Musing over the figure of Caterina, Italian historian Edmondo Solmi (1875–1912), wrote: ‘It seems that nature, after having produced the miracle, wanted to cover with an impenetrable veil the place and the human being which was an instrument for that wonderful effect.’ Subsequently Ser Piero acted as a matchmaker and arranged for Caterina to wed one of his handymen: Antonio di Pietro del Vaccha d’Andrea Buti, nicknamed Acchattabriga. It is therefore reasonable to assume that Leonardo spent his youth close to his mother and adoptive father in their house at Campo Zeppi, on the outskirts of Vinci, rather than in Florence, where his aloof father was pursuing his highly successful legal career.

Successful Book signing at Bookazine on Thursday 30.04.2015 Prince Building.

My book on Leonardo Da Vinci was put on sale in Hong Kong.

The interactive blog is here: http://www.lascarpublishing.com/leonardo/

Copies were placed yesterday in the main window at Bookazine’s flagship store in Prince Building, 3rd Floor, Central for an hour, at lunch time. The tag price was HKD 150 each. Copies of the book were signed and dedicated for around 60 people – friends and customers – who did turn out for the occasion. The remaining 100 copies were signed.

My thanks go to Kate McDonnell of Bookazine for her great help and unwavering support. And thank you to all the friends who turned out in spite of their busy working schedule.

Caterina, Leonardo Da Vinci’s mother, reached Florence via Crimea.

A French map, dating to 1777, of Crimea. Up there is Azov, on the right side, right where the two banks meet. Azov was also known as Tana and Venetians kept a trading colony up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Proof of that is that in Venice there is still a Tana Square.

Azov was one of the end of the Silk Road going to China and was controlled by Mongols, also known as Tatars. Venetians and Genoese bough slaves there and had them transported to Genoa and Venice. Then they were re-sold to other parts of Italy.

The mother of Leonardo, Caterina, may have been one of those little girls transported by Venetian ships and then she was sold to Ser Vanni, a wealthy client of Ser Piero Da Vinci, Leonardo’s father.

In 1261 the Byzantine Emperor Michael Palaeologus in 1266 granted exclusivity of trading in the Pontus region to the Genoese admiral Baldo Doria, then he obtained permission to settle there from Mengu Khan.  With the arrival of the Genoese, Caffa expanded between 1250 and 1350, evolving from a fishing village into a rich city and, in spite of the great distance, news of China’s upheavals and natural disasters reached this outpost and the trading houses reported back to their headquarters.

By the end of the XIV century, Italians had taken over the trade of slaves. The result was that oriental slaves were a common sight in maritime cities on the shores of the Mediterranean but especially Venice and Genoa. Even on ships of the Holy See there were slaves to man them and this use remained in force up to the XVIII century.

Traditionally Tana (Azov) and Caffa (known as Feodosya or Theodosia) were stepping-stones for crossing Asia and going to China – Marco Polo’s uncle, Matteo Polo, kept a small warehouse there – and it was right there that caravans unloaded spices, medicines, pearls, fabrics and people, to be then moved into continental Europe. From Tana a merchant could safely reach Beijing in eight to twelve months.

 

 

Deng Xiaoping was a great fan of Maradona.

Romano Prodi, the former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Union has just published a book of memoirs and recollections. I have not read it yet but I have seen some passages in a article published on Italy’s Corriere della Sera.
I am sure that this book will be a great read because Prodi has many interesting stories to tell, he even told me a very good one while on a visiting Hong Kong in 2012. It was about former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew (1923-2015).
I was sitting at a dinner table facing Mr. Prodi in the house of former Italian Consul of Hong Kong, Alessandra Schiavo.  The discussing was about his last visit to Singapore, and he told me that, as European President, he was welcomed there by the former Prime Minister, Lee Kwan Yew, who escorted him to the city centre. Mr. Prodi praised all the flowers in full bloom that were lining the highway leading to the hotel. Mr. Lee grunted and said: ‘Yes, but we politicians should be more careful!’
Slightly taken aback, Prodi enquired what was all about. Lee explained: ‘When we decided for such variety of flowers we forgot the bees…since flowers are in bloom all year long the bees have since ceased honey’s production!’. 
Well, getting to Chairman Deng Xiaping (1904-1997), Mr. Prodi writes that before entering politic he was in China as general manager of  IRI, a large industrial conglomerate.  When they were about to sign a contract for a power station someone told him that there was a message for him coming from Deng. A bit worried, Prodi waited for the message to arrive. What Deng wanted to know was if it was possible to have Maradona play in China!
Deng was proposing a match in Shanghai and one in Bejing. Some people there told him that he was a great fan of the Argentinian star – in fact he was mad of him…
Back in Italy, Prodi phoned Naples’s coach Ottavio Bianchi to ask if it was possible to have the team, with Maradona, play in China. But then he heard that Maradona was asking half milion USD for himself plus the team, total 1 million for two games.
Romano Prodi  had to answer that IRI could not pay that much for two matches and since then he is still upset with Maradona. Unfortunately we don’t know the reaction of Deng Xiaoping on receiving the sad news.
 
Romano Prodi ‘Missione Incompiuta‘ Laterza, 2015.

Napoleon’s Downfall due to a Volcano: Mount Tambora.

Victor Hugo, referring to the Battle of Waterloo in his book Les Misérables had this to say about the weather:

Had it not rained on the night of 17th/18th June 1815, the future of Europe would have been different…an unseasonably clouded sky sufficed to bring about the collapse of a World.

During that spring of 1815 the weather was unnaturally extreme, with heavy rains and thunderstorms, which indeed may have contributed – if not determined – Napoleon’s downfall. Private John Lewis of the 95th Rifles wrote to his friends about the night of the 18th of June: ‘Rain fell so hard that the oldest soldiers never saw the like…’.

Clearly rain could not explain all, as several mistakes were made by Napoleon and by his courageous but reckless Marshal, Michel Ney, who was in command of the cavalry, even if the root of the French defeat probably lays with the poor consideration Napoleon had for British infantry. He had exclaimed that day: ‘This affair [of beating the British] is nothing more than eating breakfast!’. A costly mistake because Wellington was ahead of him in term of intelligence and knowledge of the terrain.

But putting aside tactical mistakes – such is the consensus among historians –  in spite of them Napoleon could have won the day on dry terrain. Which was then the cause of such Act of God, to use a common mercantile expression, such unnatural increase of rainfall over that short period of 3 days, which ultimately caused Napoleon’s doom?

Napoleon did not know what it was but today we suspect that the excess of rain may have been caused by a volcanic explosion in far-away Indonesia, at Mount Tambora. This possibility has been already taken into account by some historians, but then they dismissed it claiming that the effects were felt only during the following year. (1)

This is clearly wrong since a similarly powerful explosion, dating to 1453 and happening at Kuwae, 1.200 miles east of the Australian coast, had visible and powerful effects in Europe just a couple of months later. For instance St. Elmo’s fires were spotted on the copper domes of churches in Costantinople, which were interpreted as a divine sign about its impending doom. In fact the city fell  on the 23rd of May into the hands of the Turks.

The eruption of the 10 of April 1815 at Mount Tambora, on the island of Sumbawa was the most powerful in recorded history and led to a period of significant climate change and extreme weather. The column of smoke – saturated with sulphur dioxide – created by the eruption soared to 43 km into the stratosphere, thus lowering global temperatures during 1816 and causing widespread harvest failures, which later became known as the Year Without Summer.

As a result of Mount Tarabora’s series of explosions and eruptions the Earth seen from space would have looked far more brilliant than usual, as the Sun’s rays were reflected. Longitudinal winds then spread these fine particles around the globe, creating several optical phenomena, such as prolonged and brilliantly coloured sunsets and twilights which were visible even in London and Paris between June and  October 1815. The glow of the twilight sky was tinged red near the horizon and purple above. It was this natural phenomenon that created an excess of rain for 1815 followed by a strong cooling in 1816, in fact one of the coldest years ever recorded in history.

The first detonations were heard on April 5th, 1815 at Makassar on Sulawesi, 380 km away, Batavia (now Jakarta) on Java 1,260 km away, and Ternate on the Molucca Islands 1,400 km away. On the morning of the 6th of April, volcanic ash began to fall in East Java with faint detonation sounds lasting until 10 April. What was first thought to be sound of firing guns was heard on 10 April on Sumatra more than 2,600 km away.

In the early morning of the 10 April the eruptions intensified and the whole mountain was turned into a flowing mass of liquid fire. Pumice stones of up to 20 cm in diameter, like at Pompey, started to rain down around 8 pm followed by ash at 10 pm. Pyroclastic flows cascaded down the mountain to the sea on all sides of the island, wiping out the village of Tambora and causing thousand of deaths.

Napoleon Bonaparte in the morning of the 18 of June waited for the ground in front of his army to dry before ordering a frontal assault on Wellington and his allies – encirclement was out the question because of the heavy muddy terrain. It was that delay which allowed the Prussian army – he had beaten the Prussians at Ligny on the 16th – to  reach Waterloo in the late afternoon. They entered the battlefield during the most critical time of the battle, when the Duke of Wellington had already admitted defeat and issued orders for a retreat towards Bruxelles.

 

  1. Dennis Wheeler & Gaston Demarée The Weather of the Waterloo campaign 16 to 18 June 1815: did it change the course of history? RMeets, 2005.