Intel Bible-Based Christian Network
Presents...		 The Da Vinci Code Separating Fact from Fiction
  A series of four presentations by Pete Yazzolino

Presentation # 3

IBCN slide

Thank MC and the IBCN people who have set this series up, got the publicity out, provided the lunch, prayed for it's success and helped in any way to make it happen.

Q and A slide

The Da Vinci Code book cover slide

Today our subject of discussion will be the person as well as the artwork of Leonardo Da Vinci as described in The Da Vinci Code and as described by reputable art historians and scholars and in Leonardo's notebooks.

TDVC Series slide

So far in this series we have discussed misleading and outright false statements in Dan Brown's novel concerning Constantine and Mary Magdalene.

TDVC book cover slide

I remind you that this is a fiction novel so we can expect fictitious statements. Spreading ones views via fiction is certainly a freedom guaranteed to all Americans. He has a right to say whatever he wants.

FACT page slide POS
 Artwork is accurate slide

The problem as we have discussed is on page one of his book. Here he tells the reader that there are things in the book you can believe.

Certainly we should be able to believe the statement about Leonardo since artwork is specifically mentioned as being accurate. And Dan Brown in an interview on NBC's Today Show said that he studied art in Spain and spent a great deal of time in the Louvre discussing Leonardo's works with an art historian. The book is dedicated to his wife and she is an art historian.

We'll look at the artwork as well as the statements made about it and we'll look at Leonardo the man.

The very first code or clue in a series we find in the novel, which is placed there to help our hero find the killer of the curator of the Louvre is this:

Viturian Man slide.

With the clue written with a black light felt tip marker

First Puzzle to Solve slide

We won't go into all the other clues found in the Louvre at the scene of the crime but this one leads us to the lectures on Leonardo Da Vinci and his work. And as you will see a defamation of Leonardo's character in a grand scale and only to make the author's points about the Bible, Christianity and goddess worship.

The first painting we encounter is certainly the most recognizable painting in the world the Mona Lisa. It has little to do with the story except to allow our hero to recall a lecture he gave in a prison.

Three Mona Lisa Painting slides

Why is she smiling? DB says it was an inside joke. For who? And Why? He doesn't say. Except to say she knew and that was why she was smiling.

The Mona Lisa slide

That painting pointed us to another of LDV's works through another clue.

7 Virgin of the Rocks slides (identify figures in paintings and which is the original by Leonardo)

Here the author tells us the painting contains pagan symbolism but does not give us details. He does point out that Jesus is subservient to John the Baptist but he has the infants mixed up. Note here the angel Uriel, a male angel, looks feminine. Then remember his key point in exhibit A was that John looked feminine so he must have been Mary Magdalene.

Virgin of the Rocks slide

There are only six of Leonardo's 17 surviving paintings in the Louvre and one of the other four is John The Baptist which I will show you later.

The lectures at the home of Teabing that bring exhibit A into the story surround The Last Supper, which we discussed last week. So I'll only make a few remarks here.

The Last Supper Painting (first slide)
The Last Supper slide and following slide

John the Baptist painting slide
John the Baptist slide

The Da Vinci Code paints a false picture of Leonardo

TDVC slide with statements from the book

In it the author tells us Leonardo was a "prankster", that he had "contempt for the Church", "thumbed his nose at the Church", "was fascinated with "goddess iconology, paganism and feminine deities", had "a tendency toward the darker arts", "produced and enormous output of breathtaking Christian art", "accepted hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions", "amused himself by quietly gnawing at the hand that fed him", "incorporated in many of his Christian paintings hidden symbolism that was anything but Christian", and that "he possessed the alchemic power to turn lead into gold and even cheat God by creating an elixir to postpone death" and "his inventions included horrific never-before imagined weapons of torture."

Any one of the nearly 5,000 books on Leonardo listed at Amazon.com will tell you a different picture.

Leonardo Da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, scientist, inventor, writer, engineer, and architect and considered by many to be a genius.

Born April 15, 1452, the illegitimate son of Caterina, a peasant woman and a notary or lawyer, Ser Piero of Vinci in the Florentine territory. His last name is not Da Vinci as is used so often in the book and by many now. He signed his name Leonardo or Io, Leonardo. Like calling the Wizard of Oz, "of Oz".

Contrary to popular opinion there are no definitively documented images of Leonardo. One, however, in old age has been accepted by most art historians as a likeness he did of himself with red chalk on paper.

He is credited with only a small number of paintings and only 17 have survived, and 4 of those are unfinished. He confessed near his death that he should have done more. Only six are in the Louvre:

There are sketches of horses, for the Epiphany, head of a child, anatomical and arms etc.

He left thousands of pages of notebooks with sketches none give any clue to the false statements made by Brown in his book. The drawings and notes are of human anatomy, buildings, architectural ideas, plants, animals, weapons and advanced technological concepts. There is an absence of notes on the esoteric belief systems, goddess worship, the occult, or related matters.

3 the da vinci code slides
followed by Check it Out slide (last slide)

He had only one commission from the Vatican and it was not finished.

There is no evidence anywhere except in the forged documents of the Priory of Sion that Leonardo was Grand Master or even a member of TPOS. The authors of HB/HG tried to confirm but could not link him. The forged documents list him as Grand Master from 1510 to the year of his death in 1519.

He made out a will in 1519 and one of the first art historians, Giorgio Vasari, who saw all of his writings and drawings in 1520 wrote that feeling himself near to death, asked to have himself diligently informed of the teachings of the catholic faith, and of the good way and holy Christian religions and then, he confessed and was penitent…He died May 2, 1519

His tomb has never been located.

He was not a religious man but was not at adds with the Roman Catholic Church, not antagonistic to religion or the church or an atheist.

Now I'll take questions on Leonardo or any other subject we have touched on. Maybe first I should answer the written questions from last time.

Open for Q & A

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