Status: True (in my opinion)
Here's a bit of a mystery. I received an email from someone called Prastil who wrote, "Check this hoax out:
DaVinciGrail.com." The site he directed me to claims that the holy grail has finally been discovered in Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper. For centuries people have wondered why Da Vinci omitted the grail from his painting, given that the grail is one of the central elements of the Last Supper story. Its absence has spawned a variety of theories, such as the one elaborated in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, that the holy grail was Mary Magdalene's uterus (and that the figure to the left of Jesus in the painting is Mary Magdalene). But DaVinciGrail.com claims that Da Vinci actually did include the grail in his painting, if you look hard enough. He concealed it as a symbol on the wall above the head of St. Bartholomew, the disciple at the extreme left. (I highlighted the cup in the image below).
It may seem a bit farfetched that after centuries someone discovered a detail in the Last Supper that no one had ever seen before, but as far as I can tell, that's the case. The man who noticed the grail in the painting was Gary Phillips, a Michigan computer programmer (and cryptologist). He was aided in his discovery by the fact that the painting was recently cleaned, revealing details previously concealed by dirt and grime. Of course, Phillips could be seeing a shape that was not intentionally placed there by Da Vinci, but once you see the cup, it seems so obvious that it's hard to believe it wasn't placed there on purpose. The legitimacy of Phillips's claim to have discovered this hidden detail is noted on a number of sites, such as
About.com's Art History blog.
Now here's where things get strange. Phillips has nothing to do with DaVinciGrail.com. Instead, Phillips maintains a separate site called
Realm of Twelve. DaVinciGrail.com is registered to (drumroll, please) Prastil, the same guy who emailed me telling me that the site was a hoax. Why did Prastil claim his site was a hoax? Was he trying to get me to write about his site, not thinking that I would check the domain registration? I have no idea (and I wrote about it anyway). But Phillips's discovery of the grail hidden as a symbol on the wall in The Last Supper seems real enough to me... unless there's some part of the story that I'm not clued in to. (Very possible.)
Comments
-- posted by Beverly
Looking at a close-up view of the painting (<a >here's one</a>, and <a >here's another</a> even closer), the knife is being held by the gray-bearded man in blue who is leaning over to whisper. He's holding it in his right hand, with his wrist bent. Why he's holding it, I don't know. This is a supper, though, so he could just have been using it to cut his food. Or, he could be intended to be Judas, who of course figuratively stabbed Jesus in the back. Or there could be some other symbolism there; maybe he's Peter, who ran around cutting off peoples' ears and things like that. I expect that when da Vinci painted this, he had a particular apostle in mind for each figure; perhaps somewhere is a record of who is supposed to be who in the painting.
". . . if you count the number of hands on this picture you get 27, there should be 26 unless one of them had 3 hands."
-- posted by Dan
As for there being an extra hand in the painting, I looked around and didn't see it. I saw 13 right hands and 13 left hands, which is what would be expected. Did you really see it yourself, or are you just repeating what you've heard somewhere?
Also, I looked around and found some more information on the scene depicted, also.
There also seems to be a consensus on who is who in the painting, as a description by da Vinci himself was found. A good list (plus some other information) can be found <a >here</a>. It seems that, from left to right, we have Bartholomew (in blue), James the Lesser (in pink), Andrew (in orange and dark green), Judas Iscariot (in blue and green, leaning away from Jesus and clutching a bag of money), Peter (in blue, leaning forward to talk and holding the knife), John (in blue and pink, whom some people are saying is really Mary Magdalene), Jesus, Thomas (pointing upwards), James the Greater (in yellowish brown), Phillip (in orange), Matthew (in blue), Jude (in orange), and Simon (in white).
The scene is based on John 13:21. This is the point at which Jesus announces to all twelve of the disciples that one of them is going to betray him. Now, according to the King James version, this is what's going on there: "(22)Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. (23) Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. (24) Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake." The NIV version has it this way: "(22) His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. (23) One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. (24) Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, 'Ask him which one he means'." All the other versions I can find say roughly the same thing. So in the painting, Jesus has just made his announcement, and Peter is leaning over to talk to the disciple "whom Jesus loved", who da Vinci has listed as being John. This was after the meal was finished, so the Holy Grail (if you go by the definition of it being the cup he drank out of) would probably be sitting there on the table somewhere. If you go by the other common definition, that it was the cup that caught Jesus' blood when he was crucified, then there's no telling where it might be.</i>
the 4th man from the left his hand extends down beside the other hand, if you look closely, you could argue that it is him hold the knife but i say, quite an impossible way for the human hand to twist dont you think?
Also, if you go to the zoomable version of the last supper you can see in the paintings Garurumon, Goku, and Donnatello.
Oh and the Holy Grail is Hanamichi Sakuragi.
Da Vinci called me on the phone yesterday and he told me.
Da Vinci told me.
Luckily, we don't have to go by guesswork on this. Da Vinci kept a lot of his papers and sketches well preserved, and among them are many of his preliminary sketches for "The Last Supper". <a >In one of them</a>, he works out how to have all the folds of fabric on Peter's arm. It also happens to show the position of Peter's arm and hand. So it is Peter holding the knife, as he rests his wrist on his hip and leans across to John (or to Mary, if that's what you want to think).
i dont think its mary personally, but theres alot of people who do. But he does look very "camp" lol
oh and "Juan in Santiago" that made me laugh out load, nice one.
Steven
...It's hard to see some of the letters, and I have no idea what they could be abbreviating, but here is what I can see of them. On the left side of the leftmost tympanum, from top to bottom, is "M", "SE", and "CO", and on the right side are "MX", "AN", and "PP". In the middle tympanum is "LV", "BE", "SE", and "DV", then "[possibly A]A", "[something]S[something]", and "AN". On the far right tympanum is painted "SF", "DVX", and then finally "AN" and "BA[possibly R or P]". I could be wrong on some of those letters; many are difficult to see. They remind me of the abbreviations for the names of saints that are often shown on religious icons, though.
Posted by Accipiter in the Northern Hemisphere on Wed Apr 26, 2006 at 01:41 AM
My point is that Leonardo was absolutely clever enough to give us *his* complete story. Let's keep in mind the size of this particular painting, and that Leonardo did not have computer imaging tools available to him to encode his story. He is truly genius, and I am greatful for what he has done.
My speculation is that the Peter symbol in the painting is nothing more than to direct the viewer to the symmetry of the ceiling. Once symmetry is realized, we need to ask why, and as noted recently the image folds onto itself. The grail no longer rests on St. Bartholomew -- it rests on the purported knight templar -- or at least a man fully furnished with armor. There is probably more to the story, not in this painting alone, but in a series of Leonardo's religious art (including Madonna of the Rocks, et al).
Notice how the Bible make few references to Mary? infact before he is killed I recall that she is only mentioned as a prostitute who is being stoned "Let he who is without sin cast the first rock" why is she not mentioned again until he is nailed to the cross? and at this why is she mentioned at all? surely she would have had no reason to be mentioned unless she was in fact part of jesus's group of followers? you decide!
also to Cathy Im not sure of your claims as I do not see this machine by Mary's arm but you have sparked my interest in this box/tunnel that i can clearly see above jesus please give more details on what your thoughts are on this finding and while your at it take a look at the other doorway or what ever it is just beneeth the table below the guy in blue to the left of jesus under the stool?
Sorry if I burst your bubbles, but figured I should say something before Mr. Phillips embarrassed himself.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=28298&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html ), the restoration began in 1979 (which puts us back to around 28 years ago). I am of the understanding that the symbol was completely covered up before that time -- say not even 30 years, let alone 150. I say this because if this symbol has already been known, it wasn't because it was seen first-hand in the painting.
I kindly ask that you show how this symbol was previously known to be a grail so that perhaps we can delve deeper into Leonardo's intent. Equally intriguing would be who has known -- and what else can they show us?!
kind regards,
gary