Botinaccio

Gustavo Uzielli, one of the greatest scholars of Leonardo da Vinci, dedicated part of his studies to researching both public and private archives relating to the da Vinci family. He managed to trace back into the research started in the mid-18th century by Giovan Battista Dei, who was engaged as grand-ducal antiquarian on the subject of the da Vinci family tree, and was able to track down the family’s private archive in 1869. The collection was seen at the end of the 18th century in the hands of Anton Giuseppe da Vinci, a descendant of Domenico da Vinci, of the family branch that lived on the farm of La Costereccia, at Orbignano. After that, all track was lost of it, again. Uzielli managed to find out that in Botinaccio, a small hamlet of Montespertoli, there still lived a descendant of Leonardo’s family, Tommaso Vinci. The scholar went personally to Botinaccio, where Tommaso Vinci showed him the papers from the family archive he had received from an aunt from Vinci. He also related that he had seen the papers in the hands of Don Giovanni Corsi, a nephew of Anton Giuseppe da Vinci, from whom the family collection had already been tracked down in the previous century. Anton Giuseppe da Vinci, in fact, had no male progeny, but only a daughter, Teresa, who became married to Michelangelo Corsi of the community of Santa Lucia a Paterno (according to the research of M. Bruschi). The precious packaging had been preserved for centuries by the Vinci family branch of Orbigano, then to pass, through the only daughter of Anton Giuseppe da Vinci, to Santa Lucia a Paterno. Finally, with Tommaso Vinci, it arrived to Botinaccio, where it was discovered in 1869. Gustavo Uzielli acquired the da Vinci family archive, which was deposited in 1880 at the Accademia dei Lincei, where it is still preserved today.