Researchers have identified more than a dozen living relatives of Leonardo da Vinci, Gizmodo reports.
It notes that da Vinci had no known children, but had 22 half-brothers, and a team of art historians has traced Da Vinci's family tree back in time to his grandparents and ahead in time to the modern day, a span of 21 generations. Alessandro Vezzosi from the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci and Agnese Sabato from the Associazione Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage identified 14 living relatives of da Vinci, as they report in Human Evolution. These relatives, Gizmodo notes, range in age from 1 year old to 85 years old; work in a range of jobs like as a clerk, surveyor, or artisan; and live in towns near Vinci, Italy. Only one of these relatives was previously known to researchers, it adds.
By building out da Vinci's family tree, researchers hope to use their genetic sequences to piece together that of da Vinci's to gain insight into, for instance, his visual acuity, LiveScience adds. The data will also help them determine whether remains found in the Loire Valley near where he was said to be buried are those of da Vinci.