A new generation of right-wing politicians have shifted from promoting deregulation to championing anti-migrant politics warns SOLOMON HUGHES
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Leonardo and the dialectics of nature
On the 570th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s birth, JENNY FARRELL takes a look at the techniques that made the great Renaissance painter and scientist’s work so significant
Leonardo’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa (c1503–1506)
by the Greater Manchester Workers’ and Tenants’ Association
The US relationship with Israel has evolved into a strategic liability, argues RAMZY BAROUD
A champion motorcyclist, trade union organiser and communist, Clem Beckett went from Britain’s speedway tracks to the battlefields of Spain, where he gave his life resisting Franco’s forces at Jarama. GEOFF BOTTOMS pays tribute to this remarkable anti-fascist
The greatest threat to democracy may no longer come from political parties but from unelected tech oligarchs like Peter Thiel and his powerful Silicon Valley network, argues JOHN GREEN
Claiming to ease a fertiliser shortage, the Trump administration has suspended tariffs on Moroccan phosphate imports – deepening US support for the Morocco’s control over Sahrawi territory, writes LUKE ROTELLO
LEONARDO DA VINCI was born 570 years ago, on April 15 1452 near the village of Vinci, from which he takes his name.
His mother Caterina was a servant, his father, a professional notary, with whom he was living by 1457 and later with his paternal grandfather. It was during the seven years with his grandfather that Leonardo learned to read, write and calculate.
He never learned Latin, Greek or higher mathematics. Instead, he took up an apprenticeship and ended up in the workshop of a master painter in Florence, which in the 15th century, like much of Italy, was a violent place, where rival merchant dynasties fought each other for power.
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