Posted on 03/30/2006 6:49:46 AM PST by robowombat
ITALY: DA VINCI CODE ON SHOW IN MILAN
Milan, 24 March (AKI) - While Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code is making headlines as the author is facing plagiarism charges and awaiting a ruling in April, the 'real' da Vinci code, a manuscript dating back to the fifteenth century, will be on display at Milan's Castello Sforzesco starting Friday, 24 March, until 21 May. On exhibit is a precious manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci, also known as Codice Trivulziano, featuring notes and designs made from 1487 until 1490.
The show will also include codes made during the rule of the Sforza family, who were the rulers of Milan during the Renaissance period.
The year chosen to organise the show, 2006, marks the fifth centenary of Leonardo's return in 1506 to Milan, the capital of Lombardy, where the artist remained until 1513.
The Codice Trivulziano is only one of two Leonardo codes - the other is the Codice Atlantico - kept in Milan, where the artist lived for over twenty years of his life.
The show presents to visitors a new philological analysis of the code's 8,000 words - precious testimony of the erudite vocabulary of the time - and of the sources used by Leonardo, displaying the code's pages beside the texts consulted by the Florentine genius.
The code also features impressive designs, including caricatures and drawings of, among other things, Milan's cathedral and military art.
The exhibit has been set up in the castle's Sala delle Asse, which has frescoes by Leonardo.
Leonardo Da Vinci acquired newfound popular following after the publication in 2003 of Brown's The Da Vinci Code. One of the most successful contemporary novels with over 40 million copies sold worldwide, the book uses some of the same ideas as Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a book by historians Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh published in 1982.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a speculative non-fiction book, puts forward the idea that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, they had a child and their bloodline exists to this day.
The idea, dismissed as nonsense by the Roman Catholic Church, is at the centre of The Da Vinci Code. The plot of the thriller involves the uncovering of a secret group that protects the descendants of Mary and Jesus.
The two historians are suing Random House, which published Brown's novel as well as their own book, with a court in London. A third author of the history book, Henry Lincoln, has decided to stay out of the legal action.
I've read it. "Speculative" is an appropriate term for it, "non-fiction" is not.
Extensively. IIRC, one of the characters even mentions it in the novel.
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