29 Jul
Secret Images Revealed And Explained
Remember my post on the secret images in da Vinci’s The Last Supper that were found by this guy named Pesci Slavisa?
According to several online newswire services, it seems that quite a few web sites crashed as a result of the incredible amount of traffic from people jostling to take a look at the exposed “secret images” as soon as more news sites picked the news up (not from my blog though, mind you).
The good news is that some web sites do have the power to stay available despite the avalanche of visits, and now offer an insight into what the ruckus is all about.
TheSundayMail.com.au has a great slide-show detailing how the images were exposed, while there’s a video of the process at Milano 2.0, an Italian web site. The bad news is that the video is in Italian, but you can still get a pretty good idea of how the “secret images” were exposed.
I don’t know about you, but it’s all still pretty dubious to me, even after having seeing the slide-show and watched the video.
Picture taken off News.com.au.
Tags: Art, Conspiracy Theories, Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown, Imaging, Knights Templar, Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, Virgin Mary, Wikipedia
Posted by claudio on 29.07.07 at 4:16
Hey… This is really interesting, actually I was just finishing reading the news about this, and after watching the slide show… I have really strong doubts about this too… I mean… If you look… you find… specially in painting as studied as this one.
Great article, hope to hear from you soon
Thanks for sharing
Claudio
Posted by Sicarii on 29.07.07 at 4:16
@claudio:
hi there, mate, thanks for visiting!
You’re right — if you look hard enough, you can find almost everything, or your mind simply tricks you into thinking you are seeing what you want to see.
Posted by FineTrite on 29.07.07 at 4:16
Leonardo da Vinci was, without a doubt, an immensely multi-talented person and to a certain extent a mysterious one. Perhaps it was his controversial painting of the Virgin of the Rocks which was commissioned by the Church that fueled the speculation that he was part of the Gnostic movement.
However, to call him “da Vinci” is incorrect because the phrasing “da Vinci” simply means “of Vinci”. Its akin to how the US makes the mistake of saying “bin Laden”, i.e. “son of Laden”, when they refer to Osama. But I guess Dan Brown figured that naming his book “The Leonardo Code” did not sound as catchy as naming it “The Da Vinci Code”.
Now as much as I love to read about conspiracy theories, the theories within conspiracy theories and the debunking of said theories, this latest find takes the cake. Firstly, according to the slide show, when the flipped image is placed over the original, the Mary Magdalene figure (or the youngest apostle John, depending on whether you subscribe to Dan Brown or art historians) supposedly disappears from the left because “the image should be, in theory, perfectly symmetrical”. Hang on. If an image is on the left and then the image is flipped 180 degrees thereby creating a mirror-image, wouldn’t it naturally disappear and appear on the right? And the claim that the image is “perfectly symmetrical” is mind-boggling. Anyone looking at the original painting can tell you that it is not “perfectly symmetrical” and that it is obviously not, as they state, “in theory”.
Next, the secret figure in red robes at the ends of the table is equally easy to debunk. This is simply accomplished by juxtaposing existing figures from the original painting, i.e. the figure wearing brown second from the right in the original painting (who is presumably Jude Thaddeus) and the figure wearing red second from the left in the original (presumably one of the James).
The secret image of the figure cradling a baby is even more hilarious because it is simply the figure fourth from the right in the original (presumably Philip) juxtaposed onto the figure, presumably Simon Peter, who is fifth from the left in the original painting. The mysterious figure is the apostle Philip while the so-called baby is simply Simon Peter’s head.
So I agree with you Sicarii that if someone looks hard enough, something can be made to appear. Heck, we could play Where’s Wally with this image that Pesci created and someone looking hard enough would probably find him.
What would be interesting to see are the interpretations of these secret images and their subsequent conspiracy theories.
Have a good week and thanks for sharing this article.
Posted by Luke on 29.07.07 at 4:16
Take a look ….
http://voip-tech.blogspot.com/2007/07/da-pesci-code.html
Posted by Sicarii on 29.07.07 at 4:16
@FineTrite:
Wow, you sure know quite a lot! Thanks for sharing.
@Luke:
Great link! You mean you personally know Pesci? Woah!
Posted by Luke on 29.07.07 at 4:16
@Sicarii
Of course, unfortunately i worked with him… this is not a hoax! ;-)
Sorry for english mistakes in my article… but you know.. we’re italian..
Posted by Sicarii on 29.07.07 at 4:16
I don’t doubt you at all, my friend.
It’s just amazing — this is the first time I have written on a topic and someone who knows the main character in the story leaves a comment on my blog, thank you!
Don’t worry about your English, I understand what you wrote very well. :-)
I love Italian food!
Posted by Luke on 29.07.07 at 4:16
Well, thank you for your trust, I just wanted to explain that is easy to find something in paintings and picture if you modify them by mirroring…
I know Slavisa since i was 15 or 16 y.o (now I’m 31) ’cause he came from my town and I live at about 10 km from him… but I have some urgent suspense accounts with him… but he think to make foolish things like that one… bah…
Italian food number one!
You can find the same article into my italian voip blog:
http://voip-italia.blogspot.com/2007/07/il-codice-da-pesci.html
Posted by Sicarii on 29.07.07 at 4:16
You’re most welcome again, Luke.
As FineTrite remarked in a comment above, one can always find something if you look hard enough and finally your brain tricks you into seeing what you want to see because you searched so hard.
Yea, Italian food, yummy! The mention of it prompted me to write my latest post. I like David Rocco’s program very much, lol!
Send him my regards though, he did give me a new topic to write about after all!
Posted by Luke on 29.07.07 at 4:16
Ok, have a nice time over there… we will see how this story will end…
Posted by Luke on 29.07.07 at 4:16
Well… do you want to know a little secret?
He put the (not so beautiful) website leonardo2007[dot]com over here: www[dot]microtimeonline[dot]com (the old not-updated website of his little company)
but… surprise!… here’s the original website…
www[dot]microtimeonline[dot]com/index2.html .. another Da Vinci mystery?? eheh
In fact in the webmaster link you can still write to my email …
doh! silly hoaxes!
Posted by Sicarii on 29.07.07 at 4:16
I’ll be sure to visit the _original_ as you recommended! Thanks, mate.
Posted by fourpointer on 29.07.07 at 4:16
I guess some people are so desperate to to believe anything but the truth that they will derive their theology from a painting that was made 1600 years after Christ, and was nothing more than the product of one man’s very vivid imagination.
I guess these pseudo-intellectual geniuses, who have more letters after their names than they have years of life, and whose minds are so much more brilliant that ours (pardon me while I wipe the sarcasm from my keyboard), have never once figured out that at a Passover Seder in Jesus’ day, they wouldn’t have even been sitting at a table, but lounging on the floor. And they call us ignorant. Sheesh!
Posted by LaVrai on 29.07.07 at 4:16
This is interesting…but what’s the significance to a Christian? It’s just a painting…not a photograph. It’s one man’s vision of what it must have looked like.