Louvre
Uploaded by
Shekinah SaranuLouvre
Uploaded by
Shekinah SaranuLouvre
curator and Priory of Sion grand master Jacques Saunière is fatally shot
one night at the museum by an albino Catholic monk named Silas, who is
working on behalf of someone he knows only as the Teacher, who wishes to
discover the location of the "keystone," an item crucial in the search for
the Holy Grail.
After Saunière's body is discovered in the pose of the Vitruvian
Man by Leonardo da Vinci, the police summon Harvard professor Robert
Langdon, who is in town on business. Police captain Bezu Fache tells him that
he was summoned to help the police decode the cryptic message Saunière left
during the final minutes of his life. The message includes a Fibonacci
sequence out of order and an anagram 'O, draconian devil Oh, lame saint'.
Langdon explains to Fache that the pentacle Saunière drew on his chest in his
own blood represents an allusion to the goddess and not devil worship, as
Fache believes.
Sophie Neveu, a police cryptographer, secretly explains to Langdon that she is
Saunière's estranged granddaughter and that Fache thinks Langdon is the
murderer because the last line in her grandfather's message, which was meant
for Neveu, said "P.S. Find Robert Langdon," which Fache had erased prior to
Langdon's arrival. However, "P.S." does not refer to "postscript", but rather to
Sophie — the nickname given to her by her grandfather was "Princess Sophie".
She understands that her grandfather intended Langdon to decipher the code,
which leads to Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, which in turn leads to his
painting Madonna of the Rocks. They find a pendant that holds the address of
the Paris branch of the Depository Bank of Zurich.
Neveu and Langdon escape from the police and visit the bank. In the safe
deposit box, they find a box containing the keystone: a cryptex, a cylindrical,
hand-held vault with five concentric, rotating dials labeled with letters. When
these are lined up correctly, they unlock the device. If the cryptex is forced
open, an enclosed vial of vinegar breaks and dissolves the message inside the
cryptex, which was written on papyrus. The box containing the cryptex
contains clues to its password.
Langdon and Neveu take the keystone to the home of Langdon's friend, Sir
Leigh Teabing, an expert on the Holy Grail, the legend of which is heavily
connected to the Priory. There, Teabing explains that the Grail is not a cup, but
connected to Mary Magdalene, and that she was Jesus Christ's wife and is the
person to his right in The Last Supper.
The trio then flee the country on Teabing's private plane, on which they
conclude that the proper combination of letters spells out Neveu's given name,
Sofia. Opening the cryptex, they discover a smaller cryptex inside it, along with
another riddle that ultimately leads the group to the tomb of Isaac
Newton in Westminster Abbey.
By the time they arrive at Westminster Abbey, Teabing is revealed to be the
Teacher for whom Silas is working. Teabing wishes to use the Holy Grail, which
he believes is a series of documents establishing that Jesus Christ married
Mary Magdalene and fathered children, in order to ruin the Vatican. He
compels Langdon at gunpoint to solve the second cryptex's password, which
Langdon realizes is "apple." Langdon secretly opens the cryptex and removes
its contents before tossing the empty cryptex in the air.
Teabing is arrested by Fache, who by now realizes that Langdon is innocent.
Bishop Aringarosa, head of religious sect Opus Dei and Silas' mentor, realizing
that Silas has been used to murder innocent people, rushes to help the police
find him. When the police find Silas hiding in an Opus Dei Center, Silas assumes
that they are there to kill him and he rushes out, accidentally shooting Bishop
Aringarosa. Bishop Aringarosa survives but is informed that Silas was found
dead later from a gunshot wound.
The final message inside the second keystone leads Neveu and Langdon
to Rosslyn Chapel, whose docent turns out to be Neveu's long-lost brother,
who Neveu had been told died as a child in the car accident that killed her
parents. The guardian of Rosslyn Chapel, Marie Chauvel Saint Clair, is Neveu's
long-lost grandmother. It is revealed that Neveu and her brother are
descendants of Mary Magdalene. The Priory of Sion hid her identity to protect
her from possible threats to her life.
The real meaning of the last message is that the Grail is buried beneath the
small pyramid directly below the La Pyramide Inversée, the inverted glass
pyramid of the Louvre. It also lies beneath the "Rose Line," an allusion to
"Rosslyn." Langdon figures out this final piece to the puzzle; he follows the
Rose Line (prime meridian) to La Pyramide Inversée, where he kneels to pray
before the hidden sarcophagus of Mary Magdalene, as the Templar knights did
before.
. Counted as one of the most controversial books of all times for the ideas it purports, The
Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown directly challenges the authority of the Vatican, garbing real
facts in clever fiction and telling a narrative that’s interesting, full of intrigue and thought
provoking, not to mention an unforgettable cast of characters and events.
Even a decade after causing all its controversy, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown still
captivates readers with its detailed plot full of wonderful intricacies and highly entertaining
suppositions thorough research on such topics as the Templars, Leonardo Da Vinci, codes
and ciphers, as well as the history of the Church bring the narrative to life; and fill the plot
with so many twists that the reader must hold on to better understand what is going on.
On a trip to Paris, Robert Langdon is called to the Louvres, where its curator has
been murdered. A cryptic code left in his own blood leads French authorities to
presume that Langdon is actually the killer. Paired with a cryptographer whose
interest in the case is more than superficial, Langdon begins to decipher the code
left in the blood, only to be chased down by the authorities as the prime suspect
in the murder.
Clues point to more complex codes and ciphers, as well as a deeply contentious
revelation the Vatican wishes left unearthed. Langdon is not the only one trying to
get to the bottom of this mystery, the Holy Grail itself, as an ultra-conservative
Catholic sect, Opus Dei, sends one of its own to hunt the secrets down and
destroy Langdon in the process.
As the story moves along, the reader cannot help but learn all about the secret society in
which Da Vinci was a member and how he used his art to communicate key points of
Christianity the early Church tried to bury. While the search is sure to be mind-altering,
Langdon must survive long enough to feel the euphoria.
Dan Brown uses an easy narrative to push the story forward and, as in the first book of the
series Angels and Demons, he chooses to focus his attack/critique on the Greater Church,
this time for burying the truth of Jesus’ personal side and his fallible nature.
I am utterly stupefied by this masterpiece and Dan Brown’s ability to blur the lines
between the real and the fictional, as he did in the first book in the Robert
Langdon series. No reader who takes the time to read and attempt to understand
Brown’s story and the nuances of that which is factual (as well as the fiction) will
leave the experience with nothing gained. That said, an open mind can lead down
many pathways and leave the reader to wonder how they did not piece it all
together before. A must-read for those who like their fiction served piping hot
with just enough critique of the sacred to have the Vatican debunking it for fear
the real truth will soon be unveiled.
