Was DaVinci the Universal Man trully European? was Arab, Moor, Berber, Palestinian or Syriolebanese?

LEONARDO DA VINCI
Painter and Sculptor of Florence
(1452-1519)

THE heavens often rain down the richest gifts on human beings, naturally, but sometimes with lavish abundance bestow upon a single individual beauty, grace and ability, so that, whatever he does, every action is so divine that he distances all other men, and clearly displays how his genius is the gift of God and not an acquirement of human art. Men saw this in Leonardo da Vinci, whose personal beauty could not be exaggerated, whose every movement was grace itself and whose abilities were so extraordinary that he could readily solve every difficulty. He possessed great personal strength, combined with dexterity, and a spirit and courage invariably royal and magnanimous, and the fame of his name so spread abroad that, not only was he valued in his own day, but his renown has greatly increased since his death.
Taken from his biography at www.artist-biography.info...

Hi Dear reader,

Yes you read well, it was not a mistake or false impression, you are not needing new glasses, nor another sensasionalist Novel of Dan Brown or other fiction of an incoming new writer but an actual fact that arrives from a so serious and reliable source.

Leonardo Da vinci was the illegitimate son of a relatively prosper Italian man, that looked to didn't give him special support or influenced strongly his education, although he lived under the shade of his reputation, but he was also the son of a woman from the middle east that arrived to the country as a slave, that is the hidden side of this extraordinary man.

Please chk this source of that relatively unknown information:
en.wikipedia.org...

This is a thread about the amazing career and life of Leonardo Da vinci but in particular concerning the influence that could have on it his relatively unknown but confirmed mixed ethnical background and his intercultural roots.

We are not going to deny the tremendous importance that his masters had over him but it is important to underline that among the constelation of figures in the Arts and sciences that the Italian renaicense can show there is one and only one Leonardo.

Unfortunately it has been quite difficult to know exactly what was the nationality of his mother, is something that I am,as well many researchers, still tracking but anyway every thing points to the muslim world and to the countries located in the east and south mediterraneum, viewed from Italy, so the possibilities would not be many:

Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, which one is the correct?.

Nevertheless, the fact that she was slave and non european is completely confirmed, it was a recent so important discovering done in papers found in the Museum Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci in the artist's home town of Vinci in Tuscany.

Please chk the following link:
(The news was posted in the Observer of London)
www.guardian.co.uk...

about this so interesting side of DA Vinci, there are many hypotheses, but with good base, please chk this article of the claim he could be at least half Arab, Berber or Moor:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

It is quite difficult to say that his mother's genes were more determinant than his father's, I think the only thing that we can assume is that he is also a good counterexample to the ones that say that pure ethnical background is better than mixed.

However it is also truth that the Renaicense marks the point in which the meridian of the vanguard in Sciences, Technology and Arts of our civilization was moved from the middle East to Europe.

Countries like Spain, Portugal and Italy were the geographical bridges through the ones so important Knowledge flew freely from the islam to the Christianity. it is possible that to have a mother of that culture gave to him a relative advantage, since the islam was still in its highest gold era, still centuries ahead in many disciplines with respect to Europe.

I think that other so determinant thing in his life was to have a possitive attitude, for his mentality it does matter how modest and how difficult could be the begining in the life of a man, the important thing is to have the courage to follow its own dreams with faith to turn them in achievements.

Leonardo was all his life a so possitive person in all aspects: plenty of hope, determination, patience, good will, open minded and he always believed in the existence of a Universal order, although he was a very rigurous scientist and engineer there is enough evidence that he believed in a fair God, the theory of the divine design, and in his harmony and justice.

How much his mixed background, I mean his intercultural background, weighted in this so creative and possitive mentality? that is a good question.

Was his conception of God, the Science and the Universe more influenced by the Christian mentality or the Muslim one? that is another interesting question.

Was this outstanding Genious, the archetype of the creative talent but moreover of the Universal mind a genuine example of the European and western civilization Mentality?

or,

To the contrary the best example of how much our culture is in debt with others and specially with the islamic world about the technology, science and Arts that has been for centuries cause of the pride of the white race?.

Thanks for your valuable opinions, you are welcome to participate in this discussion.

your friend,

The Angel of lightness





[edit on 7/10/2008 by The angel of light]

The peace of God to all that belong to light,
Dear Readers,

About the hypothesis that Leonardo's mother was a woman of Moor ancestry, in other words descendent of the mixed race between Arabs and Berbers that is so common in the North African countries but also in some mediterranean european ones, like Portugal, Spain and Italy, it is interesting to note that even in our days this ethnicity exist in Italy.

The Moores were a so important ethnicity in Europe during the Cordoba Caliphate, the Taifa of Seville, The Nasrid Taifa of Granada in the Iberic Peninsula, and the Emirate of Sicilia, in Italy, this during centuries, they were a flourish civilization that left beatiful buildings that still remain as authentic wonders of the world archicteture of all epochs.

Also they were the first modern europeans that had complete translations of the ancient greek classic books of Plato, Aristotheles, among many other important ancient philosophers and scientists.

In the 10th century, the city of Cordoba had 700 mosques, 60,000 palaces, and 70 libraries, the largest of which had up to 600,000 books.

In comparison, the largest library in Christian Europe at the time had no more than 400 manuscripts, while the University of Paris library still had only 2,000 books later in the 14th century.

Its influence even crossed the ocean toward LatinAmerica in times of the Colony through the expusion of the muslim moores of spain.

Some nice examples of this Architecture are:

- Mosque of Cordoba, Spain
- The Alcazar de Seville, Spain
- Gold tower of Seville, Spain
- The taller del Moro in Toledo, Spain
- Palace of de Ayuda in Lisboa, Portugal
- Palace of Alhambra in Granada, Spain
- Aljaferia Palace in Zaragosa, Spain
- Giralda tower of the Cathedral of Seville, Spain
- Paderne Castle in Portugal,
- The royal Palace of Sintra, Portugal
- Las Ventas bull fighting Plaza in Madrid, Spain
- San Giovanni degli Eremiti church in Palermo, Italy
- The great Friday Mosque, Palermo, Italy
- The Kasr Palace, Palermo, Italy
- Al-Khalisa Sultan Palace, Palermo, Italy
- Kalsa Mosque, Palermo, Italy
- Sta Maria bull fighting plaza in Bogota, Colombia
- St Francisco church and monastery in Cali Colombia
- The morisco kiosk of Alameda in Mexico city
- Church of Sn Miguel Hueyotzingo, Puebla, Mexico
- Sn Jeronimo church, Aranza, Michoacan, Mexico,
- Mudejar fountain, Chiapa del Corzo, Mexico,
- Sn Francisco church, Caracas, Venezuela

But what was the end of the Arab Empire in Europe, known as Al-Andalus:

The Portuguese Reconquista culminated in 1249 with the conquest of Algarve by Afonso III. The annihilation of Islam in Sicily was completed by the late 1240s, when the final deportations to Lucera took place.[The rule of the moors in Spain concluded with the fall of the Nasri Emirat through the capitulation treaty of Granada in November 25 1491.


The terms of that agreement(Chk them at:en.wikipedia.org...) were violated laterly by the Spanish Kings & The Inquisition when they forced the mandatory conversion to Catholicism or expulsion of all the muslim moores from Spain.

In the 1998 the King Juan Carlos I of Spain gave public recognition to the enormous cultural debt with the Moors & Sephardits, expresing also an oficial apologize for the crimes or abuses commited by the Spanish state against them in the past.

Thanks for your atention,

your friend,

The Angel of lightness



[edit on 7/10/2008 by The angel of light]

It will not be surprising that Davinci was from a North African or middle eats background.
A very good documentary from BBC that actually refers to the birth of renaissance originated from the Moore. If you didn’t watch it please do it, it is in the same line.
Further more, Saint Augustine was born in Souk Ahras, Algeria. Was he a Berber, Kabile, or something else, we don’t really know.
By the way great on post about Davinci.

Kacou.

I guess it was a very good thing he chose to be a productive, and not a destructive, member of society.

Others from the Middle East could probably stand to learn from Leo, who knows how much hidden and dormant talent there may actually be underneath all the hate.

reply to post by kacou


Hi kacou,

Well actually there is a so huge cultural debt of the modern Europe with the moores and Arabs, there are many important figures that gave in one or other field outstanding contributions.

There were many important Moores in the history that contributed to the bulding of the modern western civilzation, identity and culture.

Some Notable Moors has been (taken from Wikipedia the respective pages ):

Macrinus, 164-218, a Berber officer, prefect of the Praetorian Guard under Caracalla. He became the first Roman emperor who was not a senator in 217-18.

Lucius Septimius Severus (or rarely Severus I) (April 11, 145 - February 4, 211) was a Roman general, and Roman Emperor from April 14, 193 to 211. He was born in what is now the Libyan part of Rome's historic Africa Province, making him the first emperor to be born in the Roman province of Africa. Severus was of Berber[1] and Roman ancestry.

Lusius Quietus was a Roman general, governor of Iudaea in 117. Originally a Berber prince, his military ability won him the favor of Trajan, who even designated him as his successor. During the emperor's Parthian campaign, the numerous Jewish inhabitants of Babylonia revolted and were relentlessly suppressed by Quietus, who was rewarded by being appointed governor of Judea.

Saint Augustine (au·gus·tin November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), Bishop of Hippo, in Algeria, was a philosopher and theologian. Augustine, a Latin Father and Doctor of the Church, is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity.

Gildo was a Berber chieftain who instigated a rebellion against the Roman Empire in 398.

Alessandro de' Medici (July 22, 1510 – January 6, 1537) called "il Moro" ("the Moor") by his contemporaries was the Duke of Penne and also Duke of Florence (from 1532) and ruler of Florence from 1530 until 1537). Though illegitimate, he was the last of the "senior" branch of the Medici to rule Florence and the first to be hereditary duke. Historians (such as Christopher Hibbert) believe he had been born to a black serving-woman in the Medici household, identified in documents as Simonetta da Collavechio. The nickname is said to derive from his features (Hibbert 1999: 236). Contemporary portraits depict his full lips and coppery skin - he still has descendants (via his own illegitimate children) among many European royal and noble families.

Estevanico, also referred to as "Stephen the Moor", (c. 1500 – 1539) (also known as "Mustafa Zemmouri", "Black Stephen", "Esteban", "Esteban the Moor", "Estevan", "Estebanico", "Stephen the Black", "Stephen the Moor", and "Little Stephen"). Explorer of what is now the southwest of the United States in the service of Spain. Estevanico of North African origins, possibly from Azamor Morocco. He is mentioned in various 16th century logs as a slave servant in the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca's party.

and in the world of fiction:

Othello, the fictitious hero in the play by William Shakespeare of the same name, written in 1604. Othello is a mercenary that serves in the war between Venice and Cyprus. Othello being a Moor is important to the plot of the play because it drives Othello to believe that Desdemona, who is white, would never love him because he is a Moor. Othello marries a noblewoman, Desdemona, but succumbs to corruption by the villain Iago and becomes fiercely jealous. He ends up killing his wife, and then kills himself when he realizes he was played for a fool.

Thanks for your participation in this thread.

your friend,

The Angel of lightness

reply to post by Alxandro

Hi Alxandro,
Yes indeed you are quite right, and the most important aspect is to understand that we are living in a time in which it is still possible to refrain the appearantly incoming colision between the Western and the Islamic Civilizations.

Part of this important task is precisely to remove from the collective mentality the idea that anything that comes from one or other civilzation must represent agression, that has not been in that way for centuries.

To the contrary, a lot of Science, Art, Technology and in Literature has flown from Europe to the Middle East and conversely during the last 15 centuries.

The Caliphate of Cordoba in Spain was an excellent example of Tolerance and colaboration among the three major monoteist religions: Islamism, Christianism and Judaism. The Christians and Jews were never violated in his civil rights or liberties by the Arab Chaliphas and Emirs of Al-Andalus.

Now concerning the Spanish Arab Kings also their contribution was so important, let me mention just only two examples: (The complet record of all the Emirs and Caliphas of Cordoba is posted in Wikipedia(en.wikipedia.org...)

Abd-ar-Rahman III (ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh; Arabic: عبد الرحمن الثالث; January 11, 889 – October 15, 961) was the Emir and Caliph of Cordoba (912-961) and a prince of the Ummayad dynasty in al-Andalus (Moorish Hispania).[1] He ascended the throne when he was twenty-two years of age and reigned for half a century as the most powerful prince of the Umayyad dynasty in Iberia.[2] Called al-Nasir, or the Defender (of the Faith), he was born at Cordoba, and is the son of Prince Muhammad.

Abd-ar-Rahman was a patron of arts, and especially architecture: according to 1911 Britannica, "a third of his revenue sufficed for the ordinary expenses of government, a third was hoarded and a third spent on buildings."[5]. After declaring the caliphate, he had a massive palace complex, known as the Medina Azahara, built some 5 kilometers north of Cordoba. The Medina Azahara was modeled after the old Umayyad palace in Damascus and served as a symbolic tie between the new caliph and his ancestors. Under his reign, Cordoba became the most important intellectual centre of Western Europe. He expanded the city's library, which would be further enriched by his successors.

Al-Hakam II (al-Ḥakam II ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III; Arabic: الحكم الثاني ; January 13, 915 - October 16, 976) was Caliph of Cordoba, in the Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia), and son of Abd-ar-rahman III (al-Nasir). He ruled from 961 to 976. He succeeded to the Caliphate after the death of his father Abd ar-Rahman III in 961. He secured peace with the Christian kingdoms of northern Iberia, and made use of the stability to develop agriculture through the construction of irrigation works. Economical development was also encouraged through the widening of streets and the building of markets.

Al-Hakam II was fond of books and learning, and amassed a vast library with 400,000 books (this was sacked in the Berber siege of Cordoba in 1100). He even sent his agents to purchase 'first edition' books from the Muslim east, such as Kitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs) by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani. During his reign, a massive translation effort was undertaken, and many books were translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic. He formed a joint committee of Arab Muslims and Iberian Mozarab Christians for this task. His building works included an expansion of the main mosque of Cordoba (962-966), the Mezquita, and the completion of the Royal residence Medina Azahara (976), which Abd ar-Rahman III had begun in 936. As well, the famous physician, scientist, and surgeon Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis) was active in Al-Hakam's court during his reign.

This caliph founded a library which contained 400,000 volumes. The Caliph of Córdoba thus became famous for its philosophy, translating to medieval Europe works from ancient Greece. Ibn Masarra, Abentofain, Averroes who returned the works of Aristotle to Europe, and the Jew Maimónides (whose work paved the way for Aquinas's reconciliation of the ancient Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity) were some of these famous thinkers, although the majority were known for their groundbreaking achievements in medicine, mathematics and astronomy.

Thanks for your participation in the thread,

your friend,

The Angel of lightness




[edit on 7/10/2008 by The angel of light]

reply to post by The angel of light


Thank you for all the info “the angel of light”,
I was born not fare from where Saint Augustine was born; ma father lineage family tree goes back to Palestine in the 16 century. A family of 10 children, I am the youngest one and well past my 30’s.
My father and mum where Muslim but I know that they family converted to it 2 century before.
Some thing that my father always tolled me is that he believed in reincarnation, very strange you may say for a Muslim, but never the less he strongly believed that souls where traveling body to body from generations to generations. Once he said to me that he and many people believe that emir Abd al-Qadir (Algerian Islamic scholar and Sufi), was the reincarnation of Saint Augustine.
If you look in to the work and life of Abd al-Qadir, you will not find similarity but some sort of continuation of Augustine thoughts…very strange in deed.
I am sorry to go out of the original subject.
Kacou.

reply to post by kacou

The Peace of God to all that belong to the light
Dear Kakou,

I think your commentary is not as far as you suppose of the core of this topic. In fact it could be so useful to continue analizing, trying to extract important hints, of what could be the precise ethnical background and nationality of the mother of Leonardo Da Vinci.

An article published in the web by Share International Magazine. written by Felicity Eliot states the following:

taken from the Article What Reincarnation
could have done for History.
There is one way - the way of knowledge through experience and intuition. This is the way of the initiates, the great thinkers, whose names are well known and whose impact is felt even centuries later. Space does not allow anything but the briefest mention of these extraordinary and highly evolved people. A list of brilliant thinkers, who intuited and taught the doctrine of rebirth is virtually endless.

Let us name a few: Plato, Pythagoras, Origen, St. Augustine, Philo Judaeus, Paracelsus, Boehme, Spinoza, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Goethe, Leonardo da Vinci, Bruno, Kant, Blake, Schiller, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Browning, Flaubert, Wagner, Tolstoy, Kipling, Sibelius, McTaggart, Gandhi.
...............
The Renaissance throughout Europe meant a revival of Platonism, interest in the Kabala and the ideas of Pythagoras. That a versatile genius like Leonardo Da Vinci was a reincarnationist comes as no surprise; in his Notebooks there are several passages that show clearly that Leonardo accepted the pre-existence of the soul. At about the same time, Paracelsus wrote: "Some children are born from heaven and others are born from hell, because each human being has his inherent tendencies, and these tendencies belong to his spirit, and indicate the state in which he existed before he was born." Philosopher and dramatist,

The full article is located at: www.spiritual.com.au...


So if Leonardo had such point of view with respect to Reincarnation that give us another important hint to track his possible genealogy to the extreme east Mediterreneam sea.

This could reduce substantially our search since probable we must deal with only three or four countries from the Nile River to the Eufrates river,and being your ancestry Palestinian I can say that it would be high probable that finally this search will end in Jerusalem.

The Sufi Muslim mystic and esoteric societies are quite amazing from the point of view of parapsicology, I know about this since I am a psychic and also a Scientist that research in paranormality. It would be amazing if we would discover that Leonardo was involved in that discipline. It is quite possible that he would be interested in the metaphysics, in the same way that it is well known that other important scientists like Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Blas Pascal, Paracelsus, were in Alchemestry or Rosacrucism.

Here is another website that also posted the name of Leonardo Davinci among the famous people of the History that supported Reincarnation:
www.samsara-fr.com...

During the future updates of this thread I am going, in the same way that I did with the moors, berbers and arabs, to publish a cultural portrait of the contribution of other nationalities of the East Mediterreneum to the West Civilization.

I think this cultural portraits of different middle east countries is so important since prepare the public for the moment in which it will arrive the news that in my opinion would be the cultural one of the 2008 or 2009 year: the confirmation of what was the second nationality of the universal genious Leonardo Da Vinci.

Let me finish quoting a famous story written by Leonardo about Reincarnation. you could find this and other curious things of Leonardo at the site: www.leonardo-history.com...

Thanks for your atention,

Your Friend,

The Angel of Lightness

A man wishing to prove, by the authority of Pythagoras, that he had formerly been in the world, while another would not let him finish his argument, the first speaker said to the second: "It is by this token that I was formerly here, I remember that you were a miller." The other one, feeling himself stung by these words, agreed that it was true, and that by the same token he remembered that the speaker had been the ass that carried the flour.

Story by Leonardo DaVinci

[edit on 7/10/2008 by The angel of light]

reply to post by The angel of light


I am not scholar or other, but I would like to take your attention to this:
I have never seen the real Mona Lisa, master peace of the Renaissance.
From the photo and picture of the original, I have always this impression that the woman painted as find something so deep that her uncanny smile divulges a far deeper truth about the reality of existence. It seems to me that she is not there and yet our sense resists all effort to see behind the painting.
Another peace of art give me the same sensation is the Lohan , with unusual large ears, the Lohan has also this great emission of relief and divine serenity.
I strongly believe that this 2 peace of art are been created like a key for humans that have find they Lock.
Did Davinci find the way?
I think he did and this was a legacy of some unknown origins.
Kacou.