PTI

London, Dec 8: Leonardo Da Vinci may have had an Arab heritage, according to Italian researchers who studied the Renaissance artist's fingerprint found on one of his famous masterpieces.

The researchers at the University of Chieti discovered the print, taken from the artist's left index finger, after an exhaustive three-year trawl through his works, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported on Saturday.

"The central whorl of the fingerprint is a common pattern in the Middle East. Around 60 per cent of the Middle Eastern population have the same structure," lead researcher Professor Luigi Capasso was quoted as saying.

The revelation will give weight to the increasingly popular academic theory that Da Vinci's mother, Caterina, was a slave who came to Tuscany from Istanbul.

Almost nothing is left of Da Vinci, or his family. After his death in 1519, his remains were dispersed in a series of religious wars.

In fact, the discovery of the fingerprint came after three years of scrutinising 52 manuscripts and paintings attributed to the artist.

Using the latest spectral scanning technology, the team found more than 200 prints, but only one specimen, on a painting called 'Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine'.

Da Vinci used his finger to smudge the necklace's shadow in the painting, which is from the Czartoryski museum in the Polish city of Krakow.

"Not all the traces in the various documents were left by Da Vinci. Many of them belonged to his apprentices, or to people who handled the manuscripts. We are pleased that the fingerprint can be used to authenticate unknown works, or those we are unsure were carried out by the great genius," said Prof Capasso.