CSI Renaissance: DNA from Da Vinci, Beethoven and Van Gogh
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Looking for Leonardo
Born in Italy in 1452, Leonardo Da Vinci is one of the most fascinating characters in history. He was a prolific inventor, scientist and artist, responsible for outputs as varied as an early design for a helicopter and arguably one of the world’s most famous paintings, the Mona Lisa. So it’s not surprising that there’s an ongoing interest in collecting artefacts from his life, including his DNA.
The quest to map Da Vinci’s DNA has been going on for some time and in 2016, an international team of researchers led by the J. Craig Venter Institute began the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project in an attempt to sequence his genome. Their first goal is a kind of CSI Renaissance, aiming to confirm whether human remains originally found in the chapel of Saint-Florentin at the Chateau d’Amboise, which was destroyed during the French revolution, truly are those of the great man himself.
The team scoured many of his belonging and art for traces of DNA - hair, skin, nails, you name it, but without any luck. Then in 2019, a lock of Leonardo Da Vinci’s hair was discovered in a private American collection, where it had remained hidden for centuries. If it’s genuine, then this is the key piece that could unlock the puzzle of Da Vinci’s DNA.
Firstly, they will analyse the DNA and compare it with the DNA of his presumed remains and living relatives. Although Da Vinci is not thought to have had children himself, he had 22 half-brothers, and genealogical research shows that there are a number of known living relatives coming down the male line, including the film director Franco Zeffirelli. If the DNA checks out, it will confirm the hair and remains do indeed belong to the original Renaissance man.
The researchers also want to peer into his genome to see if it can reveal any genetic clues behind his genius, or even see if they can reconstruct what he looked like, through a kind of genetic photofit - more on that technology later in the show. And, as you might be guessing from our first story, knowing what Da Vinci’s DNA looks like could be useful for authenticating his artworks and other artefacts. Right now, we’re still waiting for the researchers to finish and publish their findings, so watch this space.
Beethoven decomposing
Modern genetic genealogists are lucky that there was such a craze for keeping locks of hair from famous folk in the past, including those from legendary - and prolific - German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Over his life, Beethoven wrote more than 700 pieces, ranging from emotionally complex string quartets to majestic symphonies. His incredible output is even more impressive when you realise that he experienced hearing loss from his twenties, eventually becoming completely deaf by his mid-40s. He also suffered from ill health for most of his life, most notably gastrointestinal problems, and was thought to have died from liver damage aged just 56, in the year 1827.
But was there a genetic component to any of his ailments? To find out, researchers carried out DNA analysis on eight locks of hair all purporting to be from Beethoven, publishing their findings in the journal Current Biology in March this year. The hair samples include one known as the ‘Hiller lock’, apparently taken by the composer and pianist Ferdinand Hiller, which has already undergone various tests indicating that Beethoven may have died from lead poisoning.
The first finding was that at least two of the locks weren’t from Beethoven at all - including the Hiller lock. Instead, this was shown to have come from a woman, instantly striking out all that previous research. Gah! One lock didn’t yield enough DNA for analysis, but five were definitely the real thing, providing enough DNA for comparisons with living relatives and also to explore some genetic risk factors.
When scientists analysed Beethoven’s genome, they found variations in two genes - PNPLA3 and HFE - that have been linked with an increased risk of liver disease. They also discovered evidence of infection with the hepatitis B virus, which affects the liver. Additionally, although Beethoven was said to be a moderate drinker by the standards of the time, the denizens of 19th century Vienna did like a tipple, which may have exacerbated these issues and led to his ultimate demise.
Although the connection with liver problems popped out, the researchers couldn’t find a genetic explanation for Beethoven’s hearing loss. However, their analysis only covered about two thirds of the parts of the genome that encode proteins, and weren’t able to do the more detailed analysis that can reveal genetic rearrangements that are common in deafness, so it’s likely they could have missed something there.
There was a final twist in the tale to be found from comparing Beethoven’s DNA with that from people alive today who can trace their ancestry back to him. Beethoven himself did not have children, but he had two brothers who did - Karl and Johann. However, just as modern-day DNA testing can reveal family secrets that might otherwise stay hidden, digging into the Beethoven family tree revealed what’s euphemistically known as an “Extra-Pair Paternity event”.
Somewhere between the mid 1500s, when Beethoven’s Belgian ancestor Aert Van Beethoven, was around, and seven generations later in 1770 when Beethoven was born, one of the Mrs Beethoven’s had some fun on the side, resulting in a pregnancy. The researchers couldn’t tell whether Beethoven himself was the product of infidelity, or if it happened in a previous generation, but this historical scandal even made it from the pages of a scientific journal into Tatler magazine! Oooh!
Who’s the daddy?
Another famous figure who’s been the subject of a paternity investigation is Vincent Van Gogh, with researchers using DNA testing to discover whether the Dutch painter fathered an illegitimate child by one of his models.
Gordina de Groot, known as Sien, was a woman who modelled for more than 20 of Van Gogh's paintings he created while living in the Dutch town of Nuenen. The most famous of these is the Potato Eaters - a picture of peasants eating dinner, which he completed in the Spring of 1885. Due to Sien’s frequent appearance in his artworks there were already rumours about the pair’s romantic involvement, which only grew when Sien, who was unmarried, gave birth to a son, Cornelius in October 1885. Stirring the pot further, both son and suspected father had red hair. Curiously, Van Gogh skipped town in November that year, leaving Cornelius and his mother as the target of much gossip. But were the rumours actually true?
In an attempt to put this debate to bed, researchers recently analysed Y chromosome DNA from two great-grandchildren of Sien de Groot and the great-grandson of Vincent’s brother Theo Van Gogh. As we explained in episode 2 of this series, when we looked at genetic ‘Adam and Eve’, the Y chromosome is passed on from fathers to son with relatively little change, so it’s a useful tool for determining paternal ancestry. So if Sien’s great-grandchildren were descended from Vincent, their Y chromosome DNA should match Theo’s great-grandson. In 2022, the results came in - Cornelius was not Vincent’s son after all.
But this kind of long-distance paternity testing isn’t the only thing that’s been done with Van Gogh’s DNA, or DNA and Van Gogh. In 2014, conceptual artists Diemut Strebe and researchers at MIT created an unusual artwork - a life-size human ear grown from stem cells gathered from Van Gogh’s great-great-grandnephew and DNA extracted from a stamp supposedly licked by the artist, which is more than a little creepy.
Less weird is a teeny tiny, glowing version of Van Gogh’s masterpiece Starry Night, smaller than a ten pence piece. It was created by researchers at Caltech using so-called DNA origami techniques, using folded DNA to create a complex structure holding more than 65,000 fluorescent crystals that glow with different intensities, lighting up the starry sky.
While it does look very cool and was published in the journal Nature, the researchers didn’t just do this for the love of art. The ability of DNA to be programmed to create intricate three-dimensional structures depending on the underlying sequence has sparked a lot of interest in using the molecule as a scaffold for tiny biosensors or even quantum computers. Who knows - one day we might even have DNA-powered quantum computers running AI software to generate artworks for the artists of the future.
