Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Last Supper: Not the Work of a Devout Catholic

Beloved by Catholics for centuries, and found on the walls in the homes of Catholic senior citizens everywhere, Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" is not what people think it is.

There is a certain amount of evidence that Leonardo da Vinci was something we see all the time today in our modern culture -- a homosexual angry at the Catholic Church for its theology on homosexuality. Leonardo was twice accused of homosexual behavior in the courts of his time. He famously condemned heterosexual intercourse in one of his notebooks. In another, Codex Atlanticus, on Folios 132 and 133, there are men’s-bathroom-toilet-stall-level drawings, by a hand not intent on being artful, showing a dog in the shape of male genitals rushing toward the hindquarters of Leonardo's servant Salai. Most commentators assume that the crude drawings could not be by Leonardo, and that Leonardo would not have kept the notes had the pictures been added before his death.

(Why make those assumptions? For instance, perhaps the drawings were a humorous invitation or love-note by Salai, himself, which Leonardo kept BECAUSE they were by his beloved male servant.)

In any event, here we show the Last Supper fresco as it was restored, as well as a Sixteenth Century copy clearly delineating salient features.



Immediately we notice two anomalies...

(1) The second apostle from the left is clearly a carbon copy of Jesus. Leonardo's notes reflect that he used the same model for that Apostle that he used for Christ.

Leonardo clearly could have changed the facial features or clothing, to avoid the anomaly, but he did not. The faces are identical. He even gave both the same red tunic.

Under such circumstances, it is simply not possible that Leonardo was not aware that he was inferring that the second Apostle from the left was Jesus' identical twin brother.

In his notes planning the Last Supper Leonardo indicates that he intended to make the second Apostle from the left James the Lesser -- the younger Apostle James. Whether or not he was inferring that James was Jesus' identical twin or that Thomas the Twin was Jesus' identical twin, it is fairly clear that Leonardo was boldly inserting heresy into his fresco.

(2) To the right of Jesus, a stern-looking Apostle whispers into his ear while he, the Apostle, points skyward with his index finger.

In Renaissance and post-Renaissance art, a pointed index finger says, "There is God." We see Da Vinci himself using this symbol in the Virgin of the Rocks painting, where an angel is seen pointing at Jesus with the angel's index finger.



In his 1650's painting of the Annunciation, Poussin has his angel pointing at the womb of Mary carrying divine Jesus, and at the Holy Spirit (or, more precisely, just above the Holy Spirit, where the descending Holy Spirit had been a moment before).



In accord with this usage, that stern looking Apostle would be telling Jesus, "You're NOT God!"






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