Italian painter Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, also known as Salaì, was BOTD in 1480 and died on this day in 1524. Born in Oreno, Vimercate, his father Pietro di Giovanni was a tenant-vintner of the artist Leonardo da Vinci. In 1490, at the age of 10, he joined Leonardo’s household. Nicknamed Salaì (little devil) for his penchant for stealing, he worked firstly as Leonardo’s assistant and model, and later trained as a painter. Biographers are generally agreed that he also became Leonardo’s love in adolescence or adulthood. In 1513, Salaì accompanied Leonardo and his household to Rome and latterly to France. He is thought to be the model for Leonardo’s paintings Saint John the Baptist and Bacchus and the drawing Angelo Incarnato, a portrait of a naked angel with an erect penis. Art historians have debated whether Salaì was also the model for La Gioconda (the Mona Lisa), a question complicated by Salaì’s close associations with the painting. Salaì himself painted a copy of La Gioconda (now held in the Prado Museum in Madrid), and in 1513 produced Monna Vanna, a portrait of a naked La Gioconda who also resembles Leonardo’s portraits of Salaì. Leonardo 12-volume folio Codex Atlanticus includes a crudely-drawn sketch of an anus, identified as “Salaí’s bum”, being pursued by penises on legs, though the authorship of the sketch is unclear. In 1518, Salaì left Leonardo’s household and returned to his family in Milan, working in Leonardo’s vineyard. After Leonardo’s death in 1519, Salaì is thought to have inherited many of his artworks, including the original La Gioconda, which was later acquired by King Francis I of France. In 1523, aged 43, he married Bianca Coldirodi d’Annono. The following year, he died from injuries sustained during a duel, aged 43-44. He has been portrayed frequently onscreen, notably by Bruno Piergentili in the 1971 TV series La Vita di Leonardo Da Vinci and by Carlos Cuevas in the 2021 series Leonardo.