This is the most astounding book you will ever read, in more ways than one. Presented to the international press at Giunti Editore’s Villa La Loggia on March 14, 2023, Carlo Vecce has written the untold story of the mother of one of the greatest minds of all time: Leonardo da Vinci.

This novel is founded on the author’s scientific discoveries, based on documents that show us the true origin of the genius, Leonardo. But it is much more than that. Defined as a ‘docu-fiction’ by Paolo Galluzzi, a Leonardo expert and the former director of the Galileo Museum in Florence, “it gives identities, faces, and passion to characters and elements that are absent from scholarly accounts ... the research is sound.” In his desire to tell the symbolically important story of one woman, Professor Vecce has single-handedly reconfigured our definition of humanity. He has “shown Leonardo to be a universal man who doesn’t belong to one civilization, one country,” (The New York Times, 14/3/23) At the same time, he has clearly shown us what makes us human, and what will allow the spirit of humanity to flourish for centuries to come: our regard for all people, all women, all children, in their desire to live.