Is there a hidden message in Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’?
The Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci was one of the most vital and prolific figures of the High Renaissance. On top of his masterful painting, da Vinci busied himself as a draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect over his 67 years. Da Vinci’s three most notable artworks are 1498’s ‘The Last Supper,’ 1503’s ‘Mona Lisa’ and the ‘Vitruvian Man,’ the last of which demonstrates the more technical side of his abilities.
The fruit of da Vinci’s undeniable talent has been immortalised in history by intense mystique. No other artist has produced work inducive of such unbound conjecture as that of da Vinci. His most famous painting, ‘Mona Lisa,’ has long puzzled art historians. Who was the ‘Mona Lisa’? What on Earth could make her smile in such a tentative and complacent manner? Why is the horizon much higher on the right side of her head?
Sadly, we will likely never find the answers to these questions. Perhaps there was no secret code, and these quirks were, as Bob Ross would call them, “happy accidents.” This air of mystery has added many zeros to the value of da Vinci’s art over the years.
One would have thought historians might eventually cease to bang their heads neurotically against the lightbulb of conjecture and simply enjoy the works for what they are. However, in 2003, American author Dan Brown gave the bottle a violent shake and left the sediments of conspiracy disturbed for the foreseeable future.
In Brown’s bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, fictional hidden messages are found within ‘The Last Supper,’ da Vinci’s famous depiction of Jesus Christ’s last meal with his disciples. In his story, Brown suggests that those accompanying Jesus at the table weren’t actually disciples and crucially, that the “beloved disciple” to Jesus’s right is actually Mary Magdalene in disguise. It is later determined that rather than a sacred cup, the Holy Grail is a secret, namely that Jesus bore a child with Magdalene.
Although this theory is based on fiction, many art scholars conspire that the feminine person to Jesus’s right may indeed be Magdalene. All earlier depictions of the last supper show Jesus and his disciples with a halo above their heads. Many historians thus profess that da Vinci painted Jesus among ordinary men – and perhaps women – and depicted Jesus without a halo to show that he, too, was mortal.
This revelation isn’t the only secret thought to be hidden in this enigmatic painting. Some commentators note a numerical code. The people sitting around the long table are shown to be communicating with their heads leaning into definitive sub-groups, with Jesus given the most space, alone in the centre.
The groups are arranged as such: 3,3,1,3,3. This has been translated to Bible coordinates from Lamentations 3:31-33, “For no one is cast off from the Lord forever.” It is thought that this hidden reference could be related to the absolution of Judas Iscariot, but others suggest it was of a more personal nature to da Vinci. The esteemed polymath was accused of homosexuality as a young man in Florence and may have been seeking redemption for what was then considered a sin.
Over the 500 years since its creation, thousands of hidden codes and secrets have been discovered and contrived by those beholding da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper,’ some of them believable and others totally barmy.
Explore some of the other theories surrounding the famous painting in the video below.