The Machiavelli Center was quoted in the March 27, 2023, "La Verità" newspaper in the article Leonardo Circassian and the Black Romans. History torn apart by ideology by Adriano Scianca.

The article deals with various cases of rewriting history, in which Western characters are forcibly traced back to non-European origins, or portrayed as black in movie and TV productions.

Scianca quotes at length from Emanuele Mastrangelo's article on our blog, entitled. No, Leonardo's mother did not arrive on a boat. And she was probably an Italian, too. This article raised doubts about the thesis presented by philologist Carlo Vecce that Leonardo da Vinci's mother was a Circassian slave; in particular, it examined the lack of conclusive evidence, in spite of what the Italian media asserted, and how the enthusiasm for this theory was due purely to ideological motives (debasing the value of Italian-ness and exalting that of non-European migrants).