Da Vinci's Double Vision

I just read a story tonight about "new images" that were found in Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting "The Last Supper". Slavisa Pesci an "information technologist and amateur scholar" held a press conference to announce his findings yesterday, and the resulting flood of website traffic to his websites supposedly took the servers down.

As a result there is no good source for these images online right now. With that in mind I set out to try to recreate them, with some success. These images might not exactly match the ones Pesci composed, but they do offer some options about the "Templar knight" and the figure "holding a small baby" that Pesci supposedly found.

Personally I think that these findings are probably just a coincidence. The mural of "The Last Supper" is in notoriously bad condition. It has been overpainted and "restored" in many places, perhaps changing or obscuring Leonardo's original work. Unless those restorers knew about Leonardo's secret images, they wouldn't know how to preserve them. Any secret images we see today probably result from simple coincidence.

Still it's plausible that Leonardo hid some kinds of secrets in his paintings. Leonardo was definitely familiar with the idea of mirroring things. He often wrote in reversed script in his notebooks, making it hard for others to read what he wrote unless they used a mirror.

If Leonardo was going to create a mirrored image, along which axis would he mirror it? The two most obvious axes would be 1) along a line down the measured center of the image or 2) along a line down the center of the central character, Jesus. Jesus' head is off-center in the painting so these two axes are different.

Pesci chose the second axis, along the center of the head of Jesus. Here is a small version of "The Last Supper" mirrored along that axis. Click on the images to see a much bigger version.

Looking on the far left and right of this image you can see a rough shape of a helmeted man seated at the table. I don't see anything to indicate that this is a Templar knight however. One would expect a Templar to have a red cross emblazoned somewhere. (However, as all you Maranatha Puzzle fans know, "The Priests of the red and white knights wore green.")

The figure holding a baby is even more obscure, as shown here. The figure's arm is in position to cradle something, but who can tell if it's a baby or not?

One of the most interesting features of this mirrored image wasn't even mentioned by Pesci. If you look at the mirrored image of the Jesus figure, there appears to be a reddish heart shape in the center of his chest. This could of course symbolize the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is interesting that the devotion of the Sacred Heart arose in the 11th and 12th centuries, around the same time that the Knights Templar got their start.

Mirroring the painting along its measured center also produces some interesting results. For one thing all of the windows and pillars match up this way, showing that Leonardo did indeed use symmetrical geometry to lay out the painting. This approach also keeps intact the fascinating grail image on the leftmost pillar above St. Batholomew.

Finally, if you just tweak the mirror axis a bit you can arrive at some even stranger images. The following image comes out much clearer than the previous ones. It is the Jesus figure mirrored to create a very clear, if somewhat odd, face with an interesting scarab on its chest. the figure also seems to be in a meditation pose of some sort.

Should this scarab then lead us to conclude that Leonardo was sending a message about the connection between Jesus' philosophies and the ancient Egyptian mysteries? It's tempting, and there might well be such a connection, and yet I still think this image is just a coincidence.

What's most amazing about this story is how Mr. Pesci was able to get so much exposure for his story. The images he found do not seem very clear. And yet he held a press conference and the resulting widespread coverage supposedly generated over 15 million website hits. I guess since I am also an "information technologist and amateur scholar" I am also entitled to post these images and this analysis, for what its worth. Somehow I doubt the resulting hits will take down the Typepad servers. :)

 

Comments

[ekxon]

As soon as I read the article, I, as well, grabbed few high res pictures online and played around a bit. I did find some of the 'discoveries' that you made as well, such as the dual axis symmetry and the 'meditating Christ' part. Well, after wasting large portion of my day, I also found some other interesting stuff. A major one is that because John lies at 45 degrees, when the images is mirrored, it forms a 90 degree square. Through this, a Masonic Square and Compass can be seen. I know Freemasonry started at around 1600, a century after DaVinci's death, but its still very interesting how neatly the Masonic symbol lies on top of John and the arch above Jesus.

Also, if you shift the mirror image just a bit more, you can see that not only is the guy in orange holding a 'baby' but also John's face is neatly tucked in the orange guys other hand.

Other things include, when the image is flipped along the centre axis, the stone on the left beside the arch above Jesus is pointed by the guy (wearing green)beside Jesus.

[iacta]

Did you try to turn the painting 180 degrees (AASB)? Then make the Son a sun. Look for the Holy Grail on the right side, around the horizontal symmetry axis. If you shift the axis you can watch a story. Now, I wonder how the hell can a human paint that. I guess he just liked mirrors, a lot.

[derek]

If you liked this then check out my site, itsjustlife.com and click on "the last supper" i found this before Pepsi