Leonardo da Vinci's DNA May Be Embedded in His Art

Scientists say they may have extracted Leonardo da Vinci's DNA from a Renaissance-era drawing for the very first time.

The trace DNA, embedded in a red chalk sketch called the "Holy Child" that some claim was made by da Vinci, shows similarities with genetic material recovered from a letter penned in the 1400s by Frosino di ser Giovanni da Vinci, a cousin of Leonardo da Vinci's grandfather, Antonio da Vinci.

Specifically, the drawing and the letter contain Y chromosome sequences that match those of a haplogroup, or genetic lineage, with a common ancestor in Tuscany, where Leonardo da Vinci was born. The researchers published their findings Tuesday (Jan. 6) to the preprint database bioRxiv, so they have not yet been peer reviewed.