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| Figure 1-4. Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne. (Alinari / Art Resource, NY) |
Leonardo’s childhood was precisely as remarkable as this picture. He has had two mothers, first, his true mother, Caterina, from whom he was torn away when he was between three and five, and then a young and tender stepmother, Donna Albiera, his father’s wife.125
Clearly, Freud’s interpretation of Leonardo fits perfectly with his own childhood. Caterina, a peasant woman, was the older and “his true mother,” from whom he was “torn” shortly after he was three years old in order to be placed with the young and more aristocratic stepmother,