a certain Caterina, probably a peasant girl, who later married another native of Vinci. Nothing else about his mother appears in the life history of Leonardo, only the writer Merejkowski believed to have found some traces of her. The only definite information about Leonardo's childhood is furnished by a legal document from the year 1457, a register of assessment in which Vinci Leonardo is mentioned among the members of the family as a five-year-old illegitimate child of Ser Piero.[1] As the marriage of Ser Piero with Donna Albiera remained childless the little Leonardo could be brought up in his father's house. He did not leave this house until he entered as apprentice—it is not known what year—in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. In 1472 Leonardo's name could already be found in the register of the members of the “Compagnia dei Pittori.” That is all.
- ↑ Scognamiglio l. c., p. 15.
