Was the Mona Lisa actually a portrait of Da Vinci's CHINESE mother? Author says she was slave

YEREVAN, 1 DECEMBER, ARMENPRESS.Leonardo da Vinci's mother may have been a Chinese slave according to new research by an Italian historian and novelist.

Angelo Paratico has spent the last 20 years living and working in Hong Kong, researching the links between his homeland and China over the past half a millennium, Armenpress according to South China Morning Post.

Speaking to the South China Morning Post, Mr Paratico said: 'I am sure up to a point that Leonardo's mother was from the Orient, but to make her an oriental Chinese, we need to use a deductive method.'

'One wealthy client of Leonardo's father had a slave called Caterina. After 1452, Leonardo's date of birth, she disappeared from the documents. She was no longer working there.' Da Vinci's father was legal notary and it is believed his mother was called Caterina, who according to some reports, was a local peasant. Supporting his theory, Mr Paratico said: 'During the Renaissance, countries like Italy and Spain were full of oriental slaves.'

He claimed that there were certain aspects of Da Vinci's life and work suggest an oriental link.

He added: 'For instance, the fact he was writing with his left hand from left to right... and he was also a vegetarian which was not common. Mona Lisa is probably a portrait of his mother, as Sigmund Freud said in 1910. On the back of Mona Lisa, there is a Chinese landscape and even her face looks Chinese.'

Mr Paratico said he believes the only way to solve the mystery is to exhume some of Da Vinci's relations in Florence and extract some DNA.