3 ms·

da Vinci was Italian, so of course those exact words couldn't be used.

• dang 11y ago
  The roots in the quote are all Latin, so close enough. But the point isn't the literal words, it's that "sophistication" is a modern concept that would have seemed strange and probably repugnant in Leonardo's time. I'm pretty sure that even Gaddis intended the phrase ironically. The Recognitions is a novel about fraud.