Renato’s “Grandfather”

My grandmother, who has information that has always proven to be correct about him, perhaps gleaned from some cousin of his large family, states with absolute certainty that the much-rumoured maternal grandfather, Mikhail, was not his grandfather at all. Nevertheless for years Neapolitans seemed not to want to see the truth, clinging against all reasonable doubt to this fanciful ancestry, perhaps to give more weight to the brilliant mathematician’s strangeness, to justify his charisma, to enhance his character.