Robert Tulip wrote:

DWill wrote:Robert, you're to be commended for bringing a case against your own theory. I mean that. I simply don't see how there is much room, after what you've said, to still think that LD had any intention of coding the stars of the ecliptic into his painting.

No way, it is absolutely not a case against my theory. You DWill earlier expressed an understandable but invalid conflation between the zodiac and astrology. Leonardo's use of the zodiac here involves no astrology. It is just astronomy, just stars, just observation of the path of the sun against the galaxy, 100% empirical description. And that is all that I am claiming is in The Last Supper. No astrological symbolism or themes whatsoever. Leonardo was a pure empiricist, and he encoded the observation of the empirical star path of the sun in his painting in the exact same order from one to twelve that we still see in the night sky.

In my opening post I quoted an astrologer who had previously argued for correlation between the apostles and the signs. I included that just to acknowledge that this general theme of seeing the zodiac signs from right to left had been noticed before. But when you read the quote, that astrologer barely mentions stars, and is just speculating like a rooster, in Leonardo's rather memorable phrase. By contrast my claims here are 100% empirical with no speculative content as far as astrology is concerned. That is not to invalidate all such speculation, but rather to say that is not my concern in this argument.

I admit Robert that my position is taken out of complete ignorance of the field you know so much about. All that leaves me is an intuition about appropriateness. I think that such intuitions have a place in argument, though. Would you agree? One doesn't have to believe that Leonardo was orthodox in religion (not much evidence of that, actually) to think that his artistic purpose was in line with the common understanding of this common Bible scene, the last supper. He was being paid to paint this scene that many had painted before, and what appears to have been his inspiration? Critics think it was to show Jesus and the disciples as fully human, unlike the previous stylized, reverential portraits. You can see LD's cleverness in choosing a particular moment to depict, when Jesus says one of his devoted followers will betray him. It gives him scope to apply what he's learned about drawing the human figure. He delivers the goods to his patron, eventually, after procrastinating the completion. Now, there's no way to prove that he didn't have some ulterior purpose such as you suggest, to convey to a different audience a more esoteric understanding of what the scene is about. That LD did split his purpose in this way seems to me unlikely, and that's all I'm saying. It's impossible to prove one way or the other. It's a judgment call.


T

I hope you good folks will excuse my being a little blunt but I think you're quite badly misrepresenting da Vinci's chacter and intent.

He was an enviable polymath and his interests wide-ranging, but thus far I've seen no evidence that he himself said any of what's being attributed to him. To be even blunter, and I hope you'll take this in the gentle spriti in which it's intended, I'm not seeing much of your own thinking either, unless of course you are the authors of the numerous books and videos you're posting.

You may not respect what I say, but perhaps you'll listen to the maestro's own words: "Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory".

Squelch wrote:I hope you good folks will excuse my being a little blunt but I think you're quite badly misrepresenting da Vinci's chacter and intent. He was an enviable polymath and his interests wide-ranging, but thus far I've seen no evidence that he himself said any of what's being attributed to him. To be even blunter, and I hope you'll take this in the gentle spriti in which it's intended, I'm not seeing much of your own thinking either, unless of course you are the authors of the numerous books and videos you're posting. You may not respect what I say, but perhaps you'll listen to the maestro's own words: "Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory".

Squelch, your comment makes no sense, and I'm sorry I find it hard to "take this in the gentle spriti [sic] in which it's intended." I have not posted any videos, and any quotes have been fully cited. The images I have posted have been my own work, drawing from existing cited sources. What do you think has been attributed to da Vinci that he did not say? Where is the "appeal to authority"? Please be specific. Generalised slurs such as your comments here are useless, casting aspersions with no substantive content. It is in the same vein as your earlier false sniping assertion that I was not using da Vinci's Last Supper. As to "badly misrepresenting da Vinci's chacter [sic] and intent", you should not make such a sweeping allegation unless you back it up with reason and evidence. Otherwise you run the risk of being perceived as a troll with a concealed agenda. I would prefer to assume you have just not read the thread very carefully.

I have not posted any videos, and any quotes have been fully cited.

I'm sorry, my post was directed at several contributers and not just you, which is why I address it to "you good folks".

What do you think has been attributed to da Vinci that he did not say?

The insertion of zodiac symbols in his painting. I see the mass of quotes and videos from a plethora of sources and they're excellent and enjoyable. But I'm not seeing anything at all from the maestro himself. It's possible that he commented at length on this but I confess I haven't seen anything to support that. Have you?

It is in the same vein as your earlier false sniping assertion that I was not using da Vinci's Last Supper.

I'm afraid that assertion was entirely correct: the image in your original post is not da Vinci's last supper, it's a rather crude reproduction.

I apologise if any of this has offended you. I'm only interested in constructive discussion; if you would prefer that I didn't express a dissenting opinion, please let me know and I'll leave you well alone.

Robert wrote:

Forgive my gentle laughter at you Penelope. I simply assumed you were reading the thread. Or maybe what I write looks at first glance like such a dense and impenetrable thicket that even Prince Charming would struggle to hack through to find Sleeping Beauty, and I will remain invisible for another hundred years. I do try to write simply, but this material involves deep challenges to philosophical assumptions. The common derision of The Da Vinci Code is a case in point. I thought it was a superb book, following Leonardo's genius in embedding high secrets in a potboiler, rather like the New Testament in that regard in fact.

I went to bed in quite a huff with you Robert. But when I woke up this morning I thought I could understand why you were a little bit miffed that I hadn't quoted you about the orbit of venus etc.

The thing is I have been very interested in Fibonacci Mathematics for about 10 or 12 years, not being of a scientific or mathematical mindset. I was thrilled when I read Dan Brown's books and Fibonacci was mentioned because I thought I was in a minority in finding it all exciting. When I read about the orbit of Venus, forming a star shape, I was gobsmacked and so of course I Googled it and verified what Dan Brown had written.

I do try to read your posts Robert, but it is the esoteric use of language I have a problem with and you are bound to use that as they are common terms to you. I could do with a lexicon of familiar terms used by the astrophysicist.

No, seriously, is there any evidence at all that Leonardo was encoding zodiac symbolism into his paintings?

I had asked this earlier, but didn't see a response. I skim through a lot of the esoteric stuff myself. There's a great deal of information in this thread about zodiacs and planet movements but really this has to be the starting point of a serious query to the idea that there is zodiac symbolism encoded into Leonardo's painting. I see a lot of conjecture and a lot of wishful thinking, but is there any actual evidence? Was Leonardo inclined towards, or was even aware of, a zodiacal interpretation of Christianity. If not—if this is indeed all pure conjecture—than how can anyone take it seriously?

That's true Geo. As far as my intuition goes - knowing about how wide spread zodiac references were in the ancient world - I tend to think Robert may be on to something. I say 'may' because you're right, the hard evidence is where?

The correspondence between the zodiac and the disciples is interesting but the thing about it is that the motif of the 12 is an old astrotheological motif, pre-Christian and is present in Judaism and Christianity for symbolic reasons. So if anyone portrays the 12 disciples in art or whatever, they likewise render this motif of the 12 in the process whether or not they understand that the 12 symbolize the hours of day and night and the constellations around the sun's ecliptic path. He may not have known about that at all when he painted The Last Supper.

But I tend to think that he probably did know about it. It's isn't anything all too shocking either. There are churches with zodiacs on the walls or floors. The 12 disciples have been rendered as the 12 signs of the zodiac in ART works and this isn't anything new or strange to be honest. The Venerable Bead and his association of the 12 signs with the 12 disciples comes to mind. The church officials themselves should have been able to readily see such a correspondence because after all, they were directing the building of all of these churches in Europe that make use of the imagery of cross of the zodiac, the cardinal directions, and everything else that we find. I find it difficult to maintain the idea that LD would have been ignorant to all of this European art and architecture surrounding his world. But that still isn't anything in the way of hard evidence to prove that he utilized that knowledge in his painting. It's just a gut feeling about the situation.

I can take you guys at your word that Christianity at times was, by some, viewed as symbolic of stellar and planetary movements, but I seriously doubt this was ever the primary message of Christianity. I don't always avail myself of the many videos and links you guys post. I actually own a copy of Who Was Jesus? by Murdoch, but I haven't taken time to read the book yet. That churches have zodiacs may have only be an attempt to appeal to those members who were coming from more Pagan persuasions, opening their collective arms to accommodate other perspectives and beliefs.

I can appreciate your attempts to find relevance in Christianity by "discovering" this hidden message. Christianity seems to be quickly losing relevance in modern times. This probably has a lot to do with its supernatural underpinnings that are increasingly hard to believe. I'd like to think there is some paradigmatic seismic shift on the way that will take people back to a more naturalistic mode of existence. And all this astrotheological stuff is cool like tarot cards are cool, but is there one smidgeon of evidence that shows that events on earth are connected to the positions of certain clusters of stars that happen to be aligned with the ecliptic?

I can't help but think of Wright's The Evolution of God in relation to this conscious (or is it unconscious) attempt to reinterpret ancient scriptures to make it more relevant, more meaningful. There is built-in appeal to ancient creeds, secret messages, and conspiracies. And people like to find meaning in all kinds of stuff. For better or worse, Christianity has had virile appeal for thousands of years. But this new (or old) zodiacal reinterpretation seems so esoteric to me that I can't imagine it taking root on any kind of meaningful scale. I can't see us at this point in time replacing the traditional Christian message with one steeped in zodiacal intrigue.

I think the healthiest thing for us to do as members of the human race is to recognize the humanity of each of us and how best we can care for ourselves and each other. To reach this, in my opinion, every sort of supernatural belief must be discarded.

I know astrotheology is based on the natural rhythms of the seasons and stars etc. But it seems to me that such study time and investigation would be more profitably spent in studying those sciences; astronomy, geology, oceanography, medicine etc. etc. that can
productively help ourselves and others.

We need to reach out to each other, not to some other belief system to validate and support our actions. We do not need a God to teach us about love. It is a natural state of being. We don't need new studies to divide us, we need actions to support and align us.

Geo wrote:

. I can't see us at this point in time replacing the traditional Christian message with one steeped in zodiacal intrigue.

People 'want' to believe in God....they 'want' to believe that there is something bigger than us. Some pattern, some meaning.

So, you see, when we see, geometric patterns in the orbits of the planets, we feel that perhaps 'God' was the original architect...

I should say, Some people...want to believe...and some people don't, it seems.