One is an amateur inventor, one is an artist, and another a keen welder. While they all share the traits of one of their most famous ancestors, the Vincis of northern Italy lived for years withoutknowledge of their rich family heritage. Until now. A team of Italian scholars and scientists believe they have traced back the family ofLeonardo Da Vincito 1331, just before the bubonic plague arrived in Italy. Using bone fragments from the Leonardo's family burial tomb in the Church of Santa Croce in the town of Vinci, they have now formally identified at least five heirs of the great inventor. The five men – still living in Tuscany not far from Leonardo's home town – all have DNA that matches segments of the Y chromosome from the bone. And though they may never becomeas famous as their genealogical forefather,they appear to share some of the investor's quirks and passions. The oldest of the five living heirs, Dalmazio Vinci, 89, has a passion for flight that began with building model aeroplanes, leading him to eventually gain a pilot's licence. He later built some of the first go-karts in Italy using lawnmower engines and would go on to invent new aeroplane propeller and ship refrigerator systems, but never ended up successfully patenting anything. Mauro Vinci, 79, is an artisan whose fine tapestry work adorned beds for a number of famous people, including Vladimir Putin. "At the end of the day, you investigate and investigate and well, they figured it out, and it is a great satisfaction," Mauro told Repubblica TV. Bruno Vinci, 81, who long worked as a metal mechanic, recalled that his father and aunts were convinced of the ancestral tie and for years sought to prove it in vain with ancestral manuscripts. "I have been asked so many times – sometimes just to tease – so are you a descendent of Leonardo Da Vinci? But in the end, it turned out to be true," said Giovanni Vinci, a retired technician who worked in a municipal engineering office. Milko Vinci, 49, the youngest of the five, apparently shares a physical trait that can be linked to genetic continuity of the Da Vinci male line. "I was born left-handed, and wrote my first words backwards, and since I was little I have loved to take things apart to see how they work," Milkosaid, jokingly adding that to say "just like Leonardo would be a big overstatement". A team of researchers, historians, molecular biologists and forensic anthropologists have been painstakingly tracing Leonardo Da Vinci's family ancestry for years. The result is an elaborate family tree going back 21 generations and involving more than 400 individuals dating back to 1331. Leonardo died in 1519and had no children himself, but is believed to have had 22 half-siblings. The research appears to have identified 15 direct male-line descendants of Leonardo's father. The research also suggests Leonardo's mother, Caterina, may have been a slave trafficked from Eastern Europe. Launched in 2016, the project involves a number of major public and private partners in Italy and the US and was coordinated by The Rockefeller University. The researchers had one major goal: to trace the Y chromosome, which is passed unchanged from father to son. "Our goal in reconstructing the Da Vinci family's lineage up to the present day, while also preserving and valuing the places connected to Leonardo, is to enable scientific research on his DNA," said Alessandro Vezzosi. "Through the recovery of Leonardo's DNA, we hope to understand the biological roots of his extraordinary visual acuity, creativity, and possibly even aspects of his health and causes of death." "Even a tiny fingerprint on a page could contain cells to sequence," says Jesse H. Ausubel of The Rockefeller University, who wrote the book's preface and directs the project. "21st-century biology is moving the boundary between the unknowable and the unknown. Soon we may gain information about Leonardo and other historical figures once believed lost forever." Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
