It may have been Leonardo's revolt against the learned, academic, high society of his time by not only using his left hand to write and paint, but to write backwards ( "in the manner of Jewish people" )in the mirrored manner.
The word "sinister" is derived from the Lain word, "sinestra", and it means "left." We can surmise from the connection between "sinister" and "sinistra," that the left handed people were not treated as normal.
It went against the entire 'right handed' tradition to write in the mirrored manner, for the writing was invented and developed by the right handed people for the right handed people! I have taught calligraphy to my high school students. It was painful to watch how the left handed students contorted his/her left hand/wrist to be able to slant the pen in the right angle to match the angle easily created by the right handed students. It appeared very 'un-natural'!
For the left handed ones to write from the left to right, which is the system suited for the right handed majority, is equal to confirming to the society's norm.... confirming to the majority. (... and to the learned ones who 'rules' the people )
Leonardo was possibly ambidextrous, so he could have adopted the "normal" right handed writing skill, but he did not. Whether it was because of his dyslexia or not (curse or blessing as the special skill), he did pursue his left handed life, and he did not "fix" himself to confirm to the society.
Or was he practicing his 'Arabic / Semitic (?)' heritage of writing right to left? (...some claim that Leonardo's mother was an Arabic house slave....)
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At any rate, I wonder what he was thinking and feeling when he was painting Judas in the Last Supper as a left handed man.
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