The Da Vinci Code
⛰ What It's About
The Da Vinci Code is about the murder of a curator of the Louvre's museum who's in possession of a secret that the public doesn't know about. He tries to pass on this secret through many intricate and interrelated puzzles. Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon and French cryptologist Sophie Neveu get caught in this adventure to discover the ancient secret which if uncovered, will undermine our long-held beliefs about religion.
🧠 Thoughts
Introduction
The Da Vinci Code (2003), being sold over 80 million times, is quite famous worldwide and has been translated into 44 languages. It's also one of the most controversial fiction books ever written; being such a controversial book actually contributed to its popularity and made it sell more copies. The book presents unpopular ideas and topics such as the idea of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene (who is deemed by Western Christianity a prostitute) having a child together.
A Very Controversial Book
The book was controversial due to its historical inaccuracy, refuting everything Christians take for granted and it is also worth mentioning that several lawsuits were filed against Brown.
History-wise
The book was met by ruthless criticism due to the historical inaccuracies that exist in the book. Not only that, but the book also contained many false facts about art and architecture. What made these critics more furious is Brown's claim that
"all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents… and secret rituals in this novel are accurate"
but this claim is disputed by many academic scholars expert in numerous areas. Despite the severe criticism by scholars, Dan Brown went on claiming that all the facts mentioned in the book are true; Brown was asked in interviews what parts of the history in his novel actually happened and he replied "Absolutely all of it". In an other interview, he was again asked how much of the historical background was true. He replied, "99% is true… the background is all true". Brown's obstinacy and stubbornness made him lose a lot of fans. In order to demonstrate how the book is loaded with false information, I'd like to mention that there's a website specifically made to refute the historical information mentioned in the book. The website's called History vs The Da Vinci Code and here's its link. It's important to mention that Dan Brown is not a professor and shouldn't be considered one. As a matter of fact, Brown joined the faculty at Exeter as an English and creative-writing teacher in 1993, so he isn't really a professor in anything historical.
Religion-wise
The book was heavily criticized particularly by the catholic church and other Christian communities. It was so controversial that some protests took place.
Law-wise
A couple of lawsuits were filed against Dan Brown. The first one claims that he plagiarized from The Da Vinci Legacy, originally published in 1983, and Daughter of God, originally published in 2000. The second lawsuit alleged that significant portions of the book were plagiarized from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. In short, Da Vinci's work has been largely dependent on these three books.
Literature-wise
Aside from the historical aspect of the book, the book is literarily fascinating. The ending was just MIND-BLOWING; it's totally unexpected! Dan Brown really knows how to make a page turner! The other fascinating thing is that all the events of the book occur in something like less than 72 hours. Incredible!
Who's This Book for?
This book is obviously not for everybody. First off, conservatives, don't ever come near this book! Secondly, this book is full of false information as discussed above, so if you're not willing to look up almost everything you read and not take anything for granted, then you probably shouldn't read this book. This book would be a very good read for someone who wants to get to know new topics and look into them. Also, conspiracy theorists are going to find this book very interesting due to the numerous conspiracies discussed in that book: freemasons, knight templars, holy grail, Priory of Sion ... you name it!
Scientific Topics Discussed in the Book
The pentacle
"It's a pentacle," Langdon offered, his voice feeling hollow in the huge space. "One of the oldest symbols on earth. Used over four thousand years before Christ."
The pentacle was used symbolically in ancient Greece and Babylonia and used today by many pagans (like Wiccans) as a symbol of faith. Christians also used it to symbolize the five wounds of Jesus which are widely known as the five holy wounds (the five piercing wounds Jesus Christ suffered during the crucifixion).
Who are pagans?
Paganism is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism (the worship of multiple gods and goddesses).
During and after the Middle Ages, the term paganism was applied to any non-Christian religion, and the term presumed a belief in false god(s).
Pagans usually focus on spirituality and nature, rather than on doctrines and dogma. Not all pagans are polytheists (belief in more than one god). Some of them are monotheists (belief in only one god). That's because in this day and age, the word pagan (without a capital P) is often used to describe anyone who holds religious beliefs that differ from the main world religions.
Note that there's a difference between a pentacle and a pentagram. A pentagram is the five-pointed star, while the pentacle has this start inscribed in a circle.
It's believed that the five points of the pentagram represent the four classic elements of earth, water, air and fire joining with the fifth element of spirit to create life. The pentacle on the other hand has an extra circle which represents sacred space in which the fifth element of spirit controls the four earthly elements.
Many pagan symbols and rituals were associated with the devil by the Church because of the view that false gods were really demons. Satanists do use the pentagram, but usually upside-down.
The pentagram of Venus
Venus traced an imperfect pentagram across the ecliptic sky every eight years. This is known as the eight year cycle of Venus. In the book, Dan Brown was mistaken to say that Venus formed a "perfect" "pentacle" every "4" years.
As a young astronomy student, Langdon had been stunned to learn the planet Venus traced a perfect pentacle across the ecliptic sky every four years.
The black-light pen
The Vitruvian man
Historical background
The Vitruvian Man was created by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1487 when he was an apprentice in Andrea del Verrocchio’s workshop, where Da Vinci learned about architectural and technological design. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the Roman architect, Vitruvius Pollio who described the proportions of the human body in one of his books. The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square.
Vitruvius provides numerous observations about the proportions of the human body, including that the navel is the center of the human body, which can be used as a fixed point to draw a perfect circle around the body, that the height of a man was nearly equal to his arm span and that a sketch of a body with arms outstretched could perfectly be placed inside a square. This claim that a human body could fit into both a circle and a square captivated da Vinci greatly. Many of his contemporaries struggled to render this idea in visual form.
The philosophical meaning
Since ancient times, the circle connoted things divine and cosmic. It has the perfect shape where all of its points on its circumference are equidistant from the center. The square is the symbol for the earth, for all physical manifestation, and for our orientation on earth via the four directions, four seasons and four elements.
The mathematical meaning
Another concept that also fascinated da Vinci was the mathematical problem of squaring a circle. The area of a circle or square could be easily calculated individually, but the real challenge laid in constructing a square with the same area as a given circle using a compass and a straightedge.
Leonardo claims ‘If you open the legs so as to reduce the stature by one-fourteenth and open and raise your arms so that your middle fingers touch the line through the top of the head, know that the centre of the extremities of the outspread limbs will be the umbilicus, and the space between the legs will make and equilateral triangle’
Fibonacci sequence
The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where a number is the addition of the last two numbers, starting with 0, and 1. Namely: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55…
Fibonacci discovered the sequence by posing the following question:
If a pair of rabbits is placed in an enclosed area, how many rabbits will be born there if we assume that every month a pair of rabbits produces another pair and that rabbits begin to bear young two months after their birth?
Answer:
Fibonacci sequence in nature
A female bee has 2 parents (male and female parents) while a male bee has one parent (a female parent). This is mainly because males are produced by the queen bee's unfertilized eggs. Note that the queen bee is the only bee that reproduces in a hive. When we look at the family tree of a male or female bee we can clearly observe the Fibonacci sequence.
The golden ratio
In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities.
The number PHI was derived from the Fibonacci sequence—a progression famous not only because the sum of adjacent terms equaled the next term, but because the quotients of adjacent terms possessed the astonishing property of approaching the number 1.618 (Phi), e.g., take the numbers of 5 and 3 of the Fibonacci sequence; if you do 5+3/5=1.6 which is the golden ratio.
"PHI's ubiquity in nature," Langdon said, killing the lights, "clearly exceeds coincidence, and so the ancients assumed the number PHI must have been preordained by the Creator of the universe. Early scientists heralded one-point-six-one-eight as the Divine Proportion."
The golden ratio in in nature
- If you divide the number of female bees by the number of males bees you get 1.618.
"Sunflower seeds grow in opposing spirals. Can you guess the ratio of each rotation's diameter to the next?"
"Measure the distance from the tip of your head to the floor. Then divide that by the distance from your belly button to the floor. Guess what number you get."
"Measure the distance from your shoulder to your fingertips, and then divide it by the distance from your elbow to your fingertips."
"Hip to floor divided by knee to floor. PHI again."
Mona Lisa
The theft of the Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia. The handyman had been hired by the Louvre to make protective glass cases for some its famous works -- including the Mona Lisa. After hiding in a closet overnight, he simply removed the painting, hid it under his smock, and was about to waltz out of the building when he discovered the door was locked. Desperate Peruggia removed the doorknob, but still it wouldn't open -- until a helpful plumber passing by opened the door with his key. It was 24 hours before anyone even noticed the Mona Lisa was missing, with artworks often removed to be photographed or cleaned.
Looking at the positive side, there were queues outside the Louvre for the first time, just to see the empty space where the painting had hung. Over the next two years, the bungling police investigation dragged on. The force even interviewed Peruggia twice, before concluding he couldn't possibly be the man behind the brazen burglary.
The head of the Paris police retired in shame. And then two years later, an art dealer in Florence received a letter from a man (Peruggia) saying he had the Mona Lisa. It was signed "Leonardo." Peruggia turned up with the painting in Italy which had spent years hidden in a trunk in his apartment. Peruggia, then 32 years old, claimed to have stolen the artwork to return her to her native Italy. He was arrested and eventually sentenced to seven months jail.
Why's the Mona Lisa famous?
The Mona Lisa's status as the most famous piece of art in the world, Langdon knew, had nothing to do with her enigmatic smile. Nor was it due to the mysterious interpretations attributed her by many art historians and conspiracy buffs. Quite simply, the Mona Lisa was famous because Leonardo da Vinci claimed she was his finest accomplishment. He carried the painting with him whenever he traveled and, if asked why, would reply that he found it hard to part with his most sublime expression of female beauty.
Why's the Mona Lisa in France not Italy?
Although Da Vinci was Italian, he left Italy to live in France because he was treated so badly. If the Pope had revered him the way the King of France did, he would never have left.
Leonardo left the paintings to his apprentice Salai in his will. Salai sold them to a representative of king Francis I. After the French Revolution, they became the property of the Republic which is how they ended up in the Louvre.
The Last Supper and Mary Magdelene
"The Last Supper" is Leonardo's visual interpretation of an event chronicled in all four of the Gospels (books in the New Testament). The gospels say that the evening before Christ was to be betrayed by one of his disciples, he gathered them all together to eat and to tell them that he knew what was coming (that he would be arrested and executed). There, he washed their feet, a gesture symbolizing that all were equal under the eyes of the Lord. As they ate and drank together, Christ gave the disciples explicit instructions on how to remember him in the future using the metaphor of food and drink. The Last Supper" depicts a specific moment in time. It illustrates the first few seconds after Christ told his apostles that one of them would betray him before sunrise. The 12 apostles are depicted in small groups of three, reacting to the news with differing degrees of horror, anger, and shock.
In The Last Supper, the figure at Christ's right arm does not possess an easily identified gender. He's not bald, or bearded, or anything we visually associate with "masculinity." In fact, he looks feminine. As a result, some people (like the novelist Dan Brown in "The Da Vinci Code") have speculated that Da Vinci was depicting Mary Magdalene. The book claims that Jesus wanted Mary to be his successor and guide the church after his death, however St. Peter was deemed sexist by the book. Dan Brown claims that he was a sexist who conspired against Mary to make himself the successor. Dan Brown supports this theory by saying that Leonardo Da Vinci knew about it and depicted it in his painting: the woman (as the book claims) to the left of Jesus is Mary and the man next to her is St. Peter who is trying to slit her throat in the painting.
And Peter said, "Did the Saviour really speak with a woman without our knowledge? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?" And Levi answered, "Peter, you have always been hot-tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like an adversary. If the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us." (The book claims this is Mary Magdelene's Gospel)
The book claims that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' wife and that he impregnated her. That opposes the whole foundation of Christianity (Gods don't marry or have children). That's why Christianity depicts Mary Magdelene as a prostitute, so as to deprecate her to deny the idea that she and Jesus were married.
