1

In order to understand the relation between the Da Vinci code and history, it is
important to bring up some historical data, events and real people. Leonardo Da Vinci
was born on April 15, 1452, in the Tuscan town of Vinci, near Florence. Son of a wealthy
Florentine notary and a peasant, in the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, where
he received the best possible education that this city could offer, being that the artistic
and intellectual center of Italy. 1 According to what is documented, Leonardo was
elegant, persuasive in conversation and an excellent musician and improviser. Around
1466 he went to study at the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, leading figure in the
field of painting and sculpture during that period of time. Leonardo then began to work in
various activities from painting pieces to the creation of large sculptural projects in
marble and bronze.
In addition to an artistic genius, he can be defined as the stereotype of geni
Renaissance because he was a great designer of buildings and artifacts that were
totally revolutionary, such as flying machines, that were somewhat shocking to the
society of the Middle ages, he was also one of the great researchers of medicine. He
produced his paintings based on mathematics and geometric, mostly because during
the Middle Age it was believed that God was in the numbers.
The main relation between History and The Da Vinci Code is the curiosity that
existed during the Renaissance and in current times about Christianity, its origins and
the role of women at the time. During the Renascence, Da Vinci was considered as an
icon, he was always very concerned about the practices of Christianity. In some of his
work such as The Gioconda commonly known as Mona Lisa or Lultima cena,
known as The Last Supper, it is thought that he indented to raise some ideas about

2
the existing, yet secret femininity of the time.
In The Da Vinci Code, when Jacques Sauninre is found dead in the Louvre, he is
placed imitating one of Leonardo's drawings, The Vitruvian Man, which simulates the
shape of a pentagram, which is fundamentally a star with five ends. It is often a
representation of black magic for many Christians, although its origins really were a
sacred geometric signs and can be traced back at least to the ancient Greeks. The word
"pentagram" comes from the ancient Greek and means "five lines", it is said to mean
"celestial body" or "star". In Egypt, the pentagram enclosed in a circle was a symbol of
the world of dead. On the other hand, in the Christian tradition, the pentagram was used
to represent the five wounds of Christ. Pythagoreans also saw the pentagram as
mathematical perfection. Seeing from the perspective of black magic or satanic
symbolism, the pentagram is reversed, with the top vertex facing down, and is
interpreted as the representation of the head of satan, with both upper points
corresponding to the pair of horns.
In mathematics, the Fibonacci sequence is an infinite sequence of numbers
starting with 1, 1, 2, 3, 5,8,13, and so on, where each is the sum of the previous two.
Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci, first described it in Europe. At the beginning
of the movie, there are some numbers written on the floor, right in the same place where
Jacques Saunieres body is found. Sophie, his granddaughter, recognizes the numerical
sequence and interpreted as a sign of her grandfather, but it takes her some time to
discover its full significance. Once she has the key to the safe deposit bank and realizes
that she needs an account number to access it, she recalls the numbers, which are
placed in ascending order to give her the solution.

3
The societies of the Renaissance and the one showed in the movie have many
similarities. During the Renaissance people was very curious about Greco-Roman
history, especially for its art, but also the domain of the church was remarkable, and
literature was focused obviously towards Catholicism. The importance of man as a
historical reality was consolidated during this period of time.
The Da Vinci code shows that the Priory was a society that existed since
centuries ago; they kept secrets that wouldve changed Catholicisms world history.
There are many researchers who have tried to figure out answers to existing concerns
in the Bible and in Da Vincis paintings. Besides, the movie reaffirms that Catholicism,
which is represented by the Pope, seeks to convince people that man is the founder of
Catholicism and the only existing woman in the Churchs history was the Virgin Mary,
who is considered only as the one who brought Jesus to life, and that no other woman
played any important role within the church. This clearly presents how the male-oriented
position of religion comes from the Renaissance.
In the film, Leonardo da Vinci is shown with the purpose of leaving us some
hidden messages within his artwork. This movie generates curiosity and concern about
something that at first glance we would not notice on the paintings, but when looking at
them carefully, these statements come out to actually be true. During Leonardos time
and even now, for many scholars and art historians, the Last Supper is considered the
best and most famous painting in the world. In The Da Vinci Code, some possible
symbolic characteristics of the painting are highlighted when, at the Leigh Teabings
house, Sophie gets the idea that Leonardo hid a great secret in his masterpiece. The
mural was painted on a wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy,

4
between 1495 and 1497, and it measures about four by eight meters. The instant that
Leonardo chooses to freeze in time is the moment in which Jesus has just announced
that one of his disciples would betray him. His main goal was to capture the different
reactions of the apostles. In order to capture the most credible expressions, Leonardo
studied poses, facial expressions and physiognomy of many of his contemporaries, to
then incorporate them into his painting.
Some of the symbols supposedly reflected in this artwork are first, the belief that
the figure posed on the right of Jesus, is not really Juan, but a female figure. Jesus, who
is wearing a colorful robe, is inclined to the opposite direction, so that the space
between them forms a "V" and their bodies, an "M". It the is claimed that this unusual
alignment of the figures, coupled with feminine traits of Juan', proves that this figure
actually represents Mary Magdalene, since the "V" is the symbol of the Divine Feminine
and "M" corresponds to Martha and Magdalene. Second, close to the figure of Peter, it
seems to be a hand that apparently does not belong to anybody and that in addition, is
holding a knife. Also, it is said that Jude who, is giving his back to Jesus, is actually a
self-portrait of Leonardo. The artist does not sign the painting, but instead, we find a
metaphorical signature. There are knots at the ends of the tablecloth; a curious way of
saying that the work belongs to, undoubtedly Leonardo Da Vinci.
The entire plot of the movie is developed around the unseen existence of the
century-old secret society The Priory of Sion. The murdered Jacques Saunine, Sophies
grandfather, is revealed as The Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, because of that
Sophie and Robert start searching and finally discover the location of the great secret of
the Priory, keeping it from falling into the hands of the main enemy of the Priory, Opus

5
Dei. A theory saying that the Priory was created in order to guard the secret of the
remains of a pro desirable lineage of the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
Throughout the film, it is mentioned repeatedly that, in the past, the Christian
Church violently suppressed and crushed heretical sects and movements, as if they
rulers have forgotten that once the Christian Church was part of a sect, Judaism. One of
the Christian sects, the Cathar played a fundamental and crucial role in the theories
contained in the Holy Grail, the book that was used as basis for the story developed in
The Da Vinci Code.
The code clearly generates concerns about why Catholicism wants to keep the
Churchs name as a sexist institution where women never had an exceptional role and
somehow it also supports the research of some guidelines that according to the
production, Da Vinci embodied on his work. However, art has many interpretations, and
perhaps the one given in movie is just one more; the presence of a women in his
paintings can be interpreted as a clue or message, but can also be seen as something
casual, only Da Vinci could clarify the true meaning of his work.