BIZARRE FACTS FROM THE DAVINCI CODE

The Secret Life of Leonardo da Vinci

A prankster and genius, Leonardo da Vinci is widely believed to have hidden secret messages within much of his artwork. Most scholars agree that even Da Vinci's most famous pieces—works like The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and Madonna of the Rocks—contain startling anomalies that all seem to be whispering the same cryptic message…a message that hints at a shocking historical secret which allegedly has been guarded since 1099 by a European secret society known as the Priory of Sion. In 1975, Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Botticelli, and Leonardo da Vinci. French President, Francois Mitterrand, is rumored to have been a member, although there exists no proof of this.

An Unbroken Code

There exists a chapel in Great Britain that contains a ceiling from which hundreds of stone blocks protrude, jutting down to form a bizarre multi-faceted surface. Each block is carved with a symbol, seemingly at random, creating a cipher of unfathomable proportion. Modern cryptographers have never been able to break this code, and a generous reward is offered to anyone who can decipher the baffling message. In recent years, geological ultrasounds have revealed the startling presence of an enormous subterranean vault hidden beneath the chapel. This vault appears to have no entrance and no exit. To this day, the curators of the chapel have permitted no excavation.

243 Lexington Avenue, New York

The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect that has become controversial recently due to allegations of brainwashing, coercion, and a dangerous practice known as "corporal mortification." Opus Dei has recently completed construction of a $47 million, 133,000-square-foot American Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.

Someone is watching you...or are they?

The Louvre Museum in Paris is one of the longest buildings on earth. Walking around the entire perimeter of this horseshoe-shaped edifice is a three-mile journey. Even so, the Louvre's collection of art is so vast that only a fraction of its works can be displayed on the walls. Inside the galleries, a multitude of security cameras watch over visitors. The number of cameras is so great that a staff of several hundred wardens would be required to monitor all of them. In fact, most of the cameras are fake.

Da Vinci's slap on the wrist.

Da Vinci's original commission for his famous Madonna of the Rocks came from an organization known as the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, which needed a painting for the centerpiece of an altar triptych in their church of San Francesco Grand in Milan. The nuns gave Leonardo specific dimensions and a desired theme—the Virgin Mary, baby John The Baptist, Uriel, and Baby Jesus sheltering in a cave. Although Da Vinci did as they requested, when he delivered the work, the group reacted with horror. The painting contained several disturbing "un-Christian" anomalies, which seemed to convey a hidden message and alternative meaning. Da Vinci eventually mollified the confraternity by painting them a second version of Madonna of the Rocks, which now hangs in London's National Gallery under the name Virgin of the Rocks. Da Vinci's original hangs at the Louvre in Paris




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The master!!

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath, having been a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Born as the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant girl, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, spending his final years in France at the home given to him by King François I.

Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man", a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention.^[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.^[2]

It is primarily as a painter that Leonardo was and is renowned. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.^[1] Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also iconic. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.^[b] Nevertheless, these few works together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists only rivalled by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.

As an engineer, Leonardo's ideas were vastly ahead of his time. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime,^[c] but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.^[d] As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

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Was there a Da Vinci Conspiracy?

The Da Vinci Code is not to be ignored as a fictional plot. Its premise, that Jesus Christ has been reinvented for political purposes, attacks the very foundation of Christianity. Its author, Dan Brown, has stated on national TV that, even though the plot is fictional, he believes its account of Jesus' identity is true. So what is the truth?

Let's take a look.

Did Jesus rise from the dead?

Atheist Bertrand Russell wrote in 1925, “I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my own ego will survive.”¹ Well, that’s cheerful. Russell clearly bordered on the morose, but we’ve all wondered, with perhaps more optimism, what will happen to us when we die.

If life after death is not an option, then Russell is right; our bodies will rot and nothing else of us will survive. No consciousness. No happiness. No hope. And, several decades of existentialist window dressing aside, what that really means is an accidental world with no ultimate meaning.

What makes Jesus unique among religious leaders and among great leaders in general, is his relationship with death. Leaders have met with all manner of untimely deaths—assassination, self-inflicted death, accidental death before the world was ready for them to go. But death sought and found them nonetheless. What is not unique about Jesus is that his enemies killed him; what is unprecedented, if the Gospels are to be believed, is that he foretold how and when it would happen and resigned himself to it (actually chose it), stating that death had no power over him.

Theologian R. C. Sproul has stated, “The claim of resurrection is vital to Christianity. If Christ has been raised from the dead by God, then He has the credentials and certification that no other religious leader possesses. Buddha is dead. Mohammad is dead. Moses is dead. Confucius is dead. But, according to … Christianity, Christ is alive.”²

So different and so abnormal is all this that a part of us would like to dismiss it as myth. But is the resurrection to be relegated to a Sunday school story—or is there evidence?

Researcher Josh McDowell said, “After more than seven hundred hours of studying this subject and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, OR it is the most fantastic fact of history.”³ Right. So which is it?

Let’s keep our minds open.

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The two sides of the coin!!

Differences Between Book & The Bible

Here are only a few of the errors represented as fact in Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code.

1.Da Vinci Code says...

Jesus is a great man or prophet in the earliest historical sources but was later proclaimed divine at the Council of Nicaea.

BUT

The Bible Says...

Jesus is called “God” (theos) 7 times in the New Testament. He is called “Lord” (kyrios) in the divine sense numerous times. No serious historian argues that these texts postdate the Council of Nicaea.

2.Da Vinci Code says...

“The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine” (p. 231).

BUT

History Says...

The Bible was not collated by Constantine, who died in 337 A.D. The Old Testament existed prior to even Jesus’s day. And the New Testament, although it started coming together by the end of the first century (about 90-100 A.D.), was not formalized until about 393-397 A.D. (after Constantine’s death). *

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A Christian Response to "The Da Vinci Code": What's the Attraction?

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Overview of Facts and Fiction

In The Da Vinci Code, Leonardo da Vinci's painting of The Last Supper is laden with clues that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that she is the real Holy Grail. Read on to learn more about this famous painting and its possible hidden meanings.

In Chapter 58 of The Da Vinci Code, Leigh Teabing and Robert Langdon show a shocked Sophie Neveu the hidden meaning of The Last Supper.

In The Da Vinci Code

1. The Last Supper shows 13 cups but no chalice: therefore, "oddly, Da Vinci appears to have forgotten to paint the Cup of Christ."
2. The person seated next to Christ in Leonardo's Last Supper is clearly a woman. This is based on the figure's "flowing red hair, delicate folded hands and the hint of a bosom."
3. The Last Supper was thoroughly restored in 1954, revealing more details.
4. The positioning of Christ and "Mary" in The Last Supper purposely form a 'V' (representing the chalice or womb) and an 'M' (for Mary).

In Reality

1. This is not all that strange - other depictions of the Last Supper have shown each disciple with a cup rather than the traditional "chalice."
2. Art historians disagree. They say it is John the Evangelist, who was "the beloved disciple" and often portrayed with feminine features.
3. The painting was recently restored, but Brown's dates aren't quite right. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "not until the most modern restoration techniques were applied after World War II was the process of decay halted. A major restoration campaign begun in 1980 and completed in 1999 restored the work to brilliance but also revealed that very little of the original paint remains."
4. Neither provable nor disprovable - 'M's and 'V's are easy to find in many paintings. The positioning of the figures in the painting are more about dramatic movement and aesthetic composition: the characters are grouped into threes.

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What the Experts Say about the Cups in

The Last Supper

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