Both Leonardo and his father, Piero, frequently appended "da Vinci" to their names. During Leonardo's lifetime, Italians increasingly began to regularize and register the use of hereditary surnames, and many of these, such as Genovese and DiCaprio, derived from family hometowns. * Leonardo da Vinci is sometimes incorrectly called "da Vinci," as if that were his last name rather than a descriptor meaning "from Vinci." However, the usage is not as egregious as some purists proclaim. His family roots can be traced to the early 1300s, when his great-great- great-grandfather, Michele, practiced as a notary in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, about seventeen miles west of Florence.* With the rise of Italy's mercantile economy, notaries played an important role drawing up commercial contracts, land sales, wills, and other legal documents in Latin, often garnishing them with historical references and literary flourishes.
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