Leonardo da Vinci’s Legacy Won’t Be Found In His DNA

This week researchers from the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project announced they have made the kind of breakthrough you might expect from a project with that name: They have potentially identified Leonardo da Vinci's DNA. The announcement ran exclusively in Science on Jan. 6 under the (excellent) headline "The Real da Vinci Code" and the researchers have published a preprint, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, about the newly collected DNA. The news, which has since been written up in a slew of other science publications, is certainly thrilling for anyone who has been hoping to uncover Leonardo da Vinci's DNA, and still pretty exciting to people like me who did not know that this was something we were trying to do in the first place.

This new sample was swabbed (gently) from a drawing called Holy Child, a gauzy, sfumato rendering of pouting baby Jesus in red chalk. Many experts say the drawing is the work of Leonardo, as it has his characteristic left-handed hatching. Others are uncertain, suggesting one of his students could have created the work. According to the preprint, the swab collected a potpourri of DNA: fungal, viral, vegetal, and bacterial, in addition to human. Specifically, the drawing contained traces of the sweet orange tree, which was cultivated in the gardens of the Medici family, a key patron of the artist. This would seem to suggest that the Project is on the right track. But the human DNA could belong to any of the many people fortunate enough to handle or clean Holy Child over the years. The researchers ruled out the art dealer who acquired the drawing decades ago, but this, of course, does in no way prove the DNA is Leonardo's.