Artist, inventor and anatomist Leonardo da Vinci was the definition of a Renaissance man — and scientists are aiming to unlock the secrets of his genius on a genetic level.But there’s just one wrinkle: More than 500 years after his death in 1519, Leonardo’s DNA has proved virtually impossible to locate.He never had children, and his grave site in the Chapel of St. Florentin in Amboise, France, was destroyed during the French Revolution in the late 1700s. There are bones rumored to have been recovered from the wreckage and reburied, but their identity and authenticity have been disputed.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn the absence of verified remains, scientists participating in the Leonardo da Vinci Project have taken an inventive approach: sampling artifacts associated with the Italian polymath for DNA.Leonardo left behind a wealth of paintings, drawings and letters — things he would have touched that may still contain traces of genetic material today.The project team swabbed letters written by a distant Leonardo relative, as well as a drawing called “Holy Child” that was possibly created by the master artist. The late art dealer Fred Kline attributed the work to Leonardo, but other connoisseurs have disputed its authenticity.The team uncovered a wealth of environmental DNA on the drawing and one of the letters, including from bacteria, plants, animals and fungi — and a matching sequence of Y chromosomes from a male. The findings were released on January 6 in a preprint of a study that has not been peer reviewed.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“There’s a lot of biological material that comes from the individual that can be tracked to a piece of paper or a canvas that absorbs that,” said study coauthor Dr. Norberto Gonzalez-Juarbe, assistant professor in the department of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, College Park. “And if you cover it with paint, it has like a protective coat on it.”The study does not claim that the DNA belongs to Leonardo, but the team believes it has established a method and framework that can be used to investigate other artifacts. If the same Y chromosome sequence is consistently found across items, it could potentially be the key to assembling Leonardo’s genome, said study coauthor Dr. Charles Lee, professor at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, Connecticut.Tracking down the artist’s DNA could provide insights into his brilliant capabilities. The team believes that he had unusually high visual acuit …
