Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci, the painter of the "Mona Lisa" and a symbol of the Renaissance, was only half-Italian, his mother a slave from the Caucasus, new research revealed on March 14.

Da Vinci's mother had long been thought a Tuscan peasant, but University of Naples professor Carlo Vecce, a specialist in the Old Master, believes the truth is more complicated.

A new virtual gallery of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings that plunges the viewer into the Renaissance master's creative process opened on June 25 at the manor in central France where he spent the last three years of his life.