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Dan Brown's bestseller - facts and lies
The real Da Vinci Code discovered.
A talk given in St John's, Glastonbury.
It is clear that a rich and powerful organisation is suppressing the real Da Vinci Code, and has given us a spurious, late document instead. The opening pages of the book as we have it probably include some of the genuine work of Dan Brown. They contain the claim to factual accuracy about certain matters - the claim about the Priory of Sion is clearly interpolated by some malicious person, since that organisation was the invention of Pierre Plantard in June 1956. He was working as a draughtsman at the Chanovin works in Annemasse. As for the 'Dossiers Secrets', they were forged and filed with the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris by Pierre Plantard in the 1960s. The French journalist Jean-Luc Chaumeil unmasked Plantard's imposture in the 1980s and published several books on the subject. He also collaborated with BBC2 on a TV programme which was broadcast in 1996, and which presented evidence demolishing the whole story.
The real Dan Brown would never have made such an obviously false claim. The opening pages also introduce us to a capable young woman, a police cryptographer called Sophie Neveau, able to outwit the regular police and rescue Professor Robert Langdon from the Louvre.
At some point, however, the genuine document ends, and an inferior text from an other hand has been introduced, while the rest of the genuine document has been suppressed, even shredded. This inferior text still refers to Sophie, but this Sophie is a weak and credulous woman needing to be supported and rescued like one of the girls in Bulldog Drummond books. What is more, for the granddaughter of the chief Louvre curator, she is represented as utterly ignorant of art history. As for the claim to factual accuracy, the inferior document hardly attempts it.
Fortunately I was able to discover in a wheelie bin outside the powerful organisation's headquarters some fragments which proved to be shredded pages from the original document. With painstaking care I have been able to piece together the crucial section, where Leigh Teabing, Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveau together examine some paintings with the common theme of the Last Supper.
With your permission, I shall read the reconstructed true text.
 Teabing limped to his library and returned with a finely bound book of Italian paintings of the 14th and 15th centuries. He opened it near the end. "Let me show you my theory about the meaning hidden in Leonardo's Last Supper."
"No." Sophie was firm. My grandfather often told me that symbols can only be understood as part of a continuing tradition. Begin here." And she turned the pages back to a picture painted in 1308.
"But this is nearly two centuries before Leonardo," protested Teabing.
"It's by Duccio. What do you see?" Sophie persisted.
"Jesus with 12 disciples at the Last Supper. It's a Jewish Passover meal, and the passover lamb is there in the centre."
"And the cup?" queried Sophie.
Robert Langdon bent over the book. "Each person has a cup."
 "And who are the chief actors in the drama?" Sophie made Teabing look more closely.
"Jesus of course, Judas, who was going to betray him, Peter, the leader of the apostles, and Mary Magdaline, Jesus' wife, leaning close to him." Teabing was definite about this.
 "All right. Let's run with that for the moment." Sophie turned a page. "Giotto. His earliest version. Can you see the same people?"
"It's more realistic in its arrangement," commented Robert Langdon, "with disciples all round the table. It's not so clear which is Judas, but Peter is on one side of Jesus, and someone on the other side, looking very like a woman, probably Mary Magdalene, leans on Jesus' lap."
 Turning another page, Sophie found another Giotto painting.
"1320," she said. "That figure leaning on Jesus' lap - who is it?"
"The hair is shorter; It's a boyish looking Mary."
 But Sophie was already turning over to Lorenzetti's version painted in the same year. Robert was fascinated.
"Look at the two servants outside doing the washing up, and a little dog and cat helping. Leigh, you look for secret symbols in paintings. What's the meaning of the V shapes between the disciples this side of the table, and either side of Jesus? Are they inverted pyramids, referring to the Egyptian book of the dead?"
Teabing took a perfunctory glance. "That's just the way the figures are. But see how loving Jesus and Mary Magdalene are."
 Suddenly Robert rose and darted to the window. He thought he had spotted an albino monk who was a member of Opus Dei. Then he returned to his place by the picture book, cursing his own stupdity. He had just remembered that Opus Dei does not have any monks in its organisation, not even giant albino killer ones
Leigh and Sophie were studying a 1370 painting by Serra. He had chosen the moment when Jesus says the blessing over the bread and the wine, he had put a symbolic Communion cup there, with a round wafer above it.
"It's like a priest saying Mass," Robert commented. Teabing took no notice. He was intent on the disciple he was sure was Mary Magdlene, positively sprawling in Jesus' lap, and looking very feminine. White skin, rosy cheeks, fair hair.
 As Sophie turned the pages she murmured "Another half century has gone by. Sassetta has abandoned realism. This is Jesus simply as the priest celebrating the Mass, with a single cup and one broken matza."
Teabing was still thinking about women. "There are two other women here, as well as Mary Magdalene.... I think."
 "Wow!" Robert could not restrain his excitement. "This one is so real. What's the difference?"
"Perspective, my friend," said Teabing dryly. "Ghirlandaio, 1440. They'd invented perspective. Brings the drama to life, doesn't it? It's a real table, with crockery and glasses for the food and wine. But look at the menace, with Judas opposite Jesus, his hand on his thigh in an attitude of challenge."
Robert was still excited. "He has made the whole scene look like an extension of the room we the viewers are in. All we have to do is step over the railings and we are there in the Upper Room."
 "Andrea del Castagno does the same," said Sophie.
 "You can see how the picture continues the room. And you can see the same drama, with Judas, dark and menacing, over against Jesus. Andrea brings back the disciple whom Jesus loved. She is leaning affectionately, caressing Jesus' hand. Let's have a closer look.
 "There they are, the central actors in the drama: Peter, Jesus, Judas, and the woman." Sophie turned to Teabing. "Have you noticed how Andrea del Castagno even labels two of them, down below?"
Teabing squinted and then read: "S. Petrus, St Peter; and S Iohannes, St John. But ... but ... Surely that's Mary Magdalene?"
Sophie smiled and said nothing. As she had known all along, those feminine-looking portraits of the beloved disciple were all St John. That was the convention - a young, beardless St John, often given long wavy hair.
 She flipped quickly through more pictures - Jacomart in the 1450s.
 Bouts in 1465.
 "There's the feminine-looking John," she said, "more of a tomboy this time. But the real drama is on our side of the table. While other disciples look reverently, or, like the man on the right, clutch their cap like a peasant overawed,
 Judas once again has his hand defiantly on his hip."
Robert commented: "Why the knives? Knives, but no forks. They must have a sinister significance."
Teabing was glad to air his knowledge, to recover from the shock of seeing his theory about Mary Magdalene disproved. "Well, although table forks had been invented back in the 11th century, they were rare, expensive and limited to the courts of the powerful."
 "We are within 30 years of Leonardo now," said Sophie . "This is 1470."
 "Ghirlandaio 1480."
 "See Peter with the knife. Peter was going to fight for Jesus when the soldiers came to arrest him in the garden of Gethsemane, and he cut off the ear of the high priest's servant."
 "1481, Rosselli.
 with a feminine St John."
 "Ghirlandaio yet again, 1486."
 Sophie turned another page, and there is was: 1498 and Leonardo's Last Supper, taking up the whole width of the end wall in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, outside Milan.
Robert commented: "The perspective makes the picture extend the room. As the monks sat down to eat each meal, they would be in the presence of Christ and his apostles."
Teabing was on the point of launching into his carefully prepared lecture on the famous painting, when Sophie cut him off. "We must see the drawings. Does your library have a book of Leonardo's drawings?"
Once more Teabing limped out, and returned a few moments later with a dusty tome. Sophie took it from him and found what she was looking for.
 "Leonardo prepared carefully for this commission. Here top left Judas is where most artists had placed him, opposite Jesus. And the sketch on the right shows John reclining on Jesus' lap."
 "A different version: Jesus is pointing out the traitor, as the gospels tells us, by giving Judas a morsel of food from his own plate, a sign of love."
 Sophie flicked through individual studies, for an elderly but muscular disciple,
 ... for St Peter,
 ... and for St John.
 At the next page she covered all but the face.
 ... and the same on the following page.
 ... On this strange drawing she left a bit more for the men to look at.
At this point I'd like to break off from the true document and read a sentence or two from the inferior, published version.
'As [Sophie] studied the person's face and body, a wave of astonishment rose within her. The individual had flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the hint of a bosom. It was, without a doubt, female. 'That's a woman!" Sophie exclaimed. Teabing was laughing. "Surprise, surprise! Believe me, it's no mistake. Leonardo was skilled at painting the difference between the sexes."' Back to the true document now.
 "Now," said Sophie, "let's see more of these three pictures. Here is St John the Baptist.
 ... and so is this.
 As for this drawing, I invite you to look a little lower than the 'hint of a bosom'."
Sophie waited for a response, but both the men were silent. - That's where the restored document comes to an end.
Unfortunately, Leonardo used oil paints on the wall, a technique that didn't work. The picture began to fall apart in his lifetime. It has been restored and re-restored. Here is the latest restoration.
And here is the figure of St John.
However that may be, let's try to understand what Leonardo finally decided to picture. Let's not be led astray by late pseudo-gospels, let alone by a 21st century writer of fiction who hasn't done his research. Listen to this:
Jesus became visibly upset, and then he told them why. "One of you is going to betray me."
The disciples looked around at one another, wondering who on earth he was talking about. One of the disciples, the one Jesus loved dearly, was reclining against him, his head on his shoulder. Peter motioned to him to ask who Jesus might be talking about. So, being the closest, he said, "Master, who?"
That's St John's Gospel, written perhaps as early as AD 90, and it tells of a moment of high drama.
This is the moment that Leonardo has decided to capture. There's a traitor in the room. Who can it be?
All the disciples want to know, so that they can stop him.
 See the knife in this detail. Whether during restorations or not, the design has changed and the hand with the knife doesn't seem to belong to Peter, but it's intended to be Peter's. The traitor is being threatened.
But see where Leonardo has put the traitor, Judas. He is on the same side of the table as the rest, close to Jesus. Jesus still loves him. We know it's Judas by the money bag. Judas kept the group's money. So Peter has to lean behind Judas to whisper in John's ear: "Ask Jesus who the traitor is." And John leans towards Peter to hear.
Draw back to see the whole scene. The disciples are in startled groups, anxious, asking each other, asking 'Does he mean me?'
 Fortunately a 16th century artist made a large scale copy of the picture before it disintegrated too far, and we can see better what Leonardo intended.
There's so much to wonder at: the hands, for instance. Jesus hand upwards, open and giving. Judas' hands, one grasping the money, the other seeming greedy for more. The monks of Santa Maria delle Grazie had their money's worth. There alongside them was the scene where Jesus, truly man as well as truly divine, was making plain the meaning of his love and of the death he knew he would die.
Or perhaps there are two central figures, as Dan Brown claims? To my eyes there is one. Perhaps Leonardo was the head of the Priory of Sion and used one painting to preach a hidden 'truth'. But since the Priory of Sion was invented by two French hoaxers in the second half of the 20th century, I doubt it.
What do we make of Dan Brown, then? Let's enjoy a moderately exciting chase story, and treat his art criticism, and the theology he hangs on it, as the hokum it is.
"There are three classes of people. Those who see; those who see when they are shown; those who do not see."
See also an art historian's view of this picture.
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Friday 25th of July 2008
