The Romance of Leonardo Da Vinci
samsloan
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) was almost certainly not a believer in
Christianity, yet his most famous work, “The Last Supper”, is based on
Christian beliefs.
At the turn of the 20th century, a brilliant Russian writer, Dmitri
Merejcovski, wrote this novel, “The Romance of Leonardo Da Vinci”, a
profound meditation on art and religion. Merejcovski portrays Leonardo
as a man of many facets, some of which may be grouped as pagan, some
of which are Christian. As a result, Leonardo was filled with conflict
and doubts. Striving for the unattainable, he almost never completes a
work. Always dissatisfied with what he has done, the artist suffers a
characteristically modern anxiety.
This book is filled with historical and semi-historical information.
It is a historical novel. It is difficult to determine how much is
based on fact.
It is clear that this book provided much of the inspiration for the
current best selling book and block-buster movie “The Da Vinci Code”
by Dan Brown.
Like The Da Vinci Code, The Romance of Leonardo Da Vinci finds clues
hidden in various places, including in painted over areas of The Last
Supper.
The Last Supper was painted on a wall on an experimental format. It
started deteriorating rapidly and thus had to be painted over by
various artists to preserve it. Many of the attempts to preserve The
Last Supper have only made it worse.
This gives rise to mysteries regarding what the original painting
contained. In The Da Vinci Code, there is finding that there is the
hidden image of a woman, Mary Magdalene, to the right of Jesus.
This follows the example of this book, The Romance of Leonardo Da
Vinci, which finds many secret meanings in the art works of Leonardo
Da Vinci.
Of particular interest is the mysterious knife in The Last Supper held
presumably by Peter and pointed at Bartholomew. The Romance of
Leonardo Da Vinci finds special meanings in the knife.
It is widely believed and even assumed that Leonardo Da Vinci was
homosexual. Absolute proof is lacking, but he was, as a young man,
arrested and charged with sodomy, a serious offense. Fortunately, he
was acquitted.
Leonardo Da Vinci was born the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da
Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of
Florence.
Leonardo Da Vinci had no last name. The name “Da Vinci” merely means
that he was from Vinci, the name of a place.
Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine
painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the
service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna
and Venice and spent his last years in France, at the home awarded him
by Francis I.
Leonardo was born April 15, 1452 and died May 2, 1519. He was an
Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor,
anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and
writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the
Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only
by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the
greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented
person ever to have lived.[
Sam Sloan
October 24, 2009
ISBN 4-87187-839-2
978-4-87187-839-5
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ISBN=4871878392
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/4871878392
Sam Sloan
None
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) was almost certainly not a believer in
Christianity, yet his most famous work, “The Last Supper”, is based
on
Christian beliefs.--SS
Classic Sam, throw some shit on the ceiling and see what sticks. Then
dance around as some of it comes back to earth.
John W Kennedy
> It is clear that this book provided much of the inspiration for the
> by Dan Brown.
Dan Brown is an asshole, and so are you.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Give up vows and dogmas, and fixed things, and you may grow like
That. ...you may come to think a blow bad, because it hurts, and not
because it humiliates. You may come to think murder wrong, because it
is violent, and not because it is unjust."
-- G. K. Chesterton. "The Ball and the Cross"
David Ames
wants to locate the book by author's name.
David Ames
Are you repeating yourself, or is there an echo here on the Usenet?
David Ames
samsloan
> Merejcovsky is alternately spelled Merezhkovsky -- in case anyone
> wants to locate the book by author's name.
Thank you. Correct.
And it is also spelled Merejkowski.
I have spelled it two different ways in my reprint. I hope the proof
reader does not complain.
It seems that there are 4 variables in his name.
"j" can be "zh"
"k" can be "c"
"w" can be "v"
"i" can be "y"
So, there are 2 to the 4th power or 16 ways to spell his name.
I have not been able to find any other books that he wrote, although
he lived to 1941 and this book is considered a masterpiece. Perhaps if
I searched under all possible spellings I will find other books.
And, in response to the other heckler above, the well-known fact is
that Leonardo Da Vinci was NOT a Christian, although he is said to
have converted to Christianity on his death bed (a good time to
convert).
Sam Sloan
samsloan
> wants to locate the book by author's name.
Thank you very much.
Thanks to you I have found that the author wrote many other books:
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/dmitry-sergeyevich-merezhkovsky/
Encyclopedia of World Biography on Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky
The Russian writer and literary critic Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky
(1865-1941), a founder of the modernist movement in Russian
literature, combined fervent idealism with literary innovation.
Dmitry Merezhkovsky was born in St. Petersburg on Aug. 2/14, 1865,
into the family of a minor court official. Even before graduating from
the university there, he began (1883) publishing in liberal magazines
poems in the prevailing style and civic spirit of Semyon Y. Nadson.
The appearance of Merezhkovsky's first book, Poems, in 1888, the year
after Nadson's death, suggested that he was Nadson's successor, but in
1892 he published another book of verse provocatively entitled Symbols
and in 1893 a small critical book, On the Reasons for the Decline of
and on New Currents in Contemporary Russian Literature. Rejecting
sociological criticism and socially oriented verse, these two books
affirmed a new quasi-religious philosophy and a fresh literary manner.
With his young wife, the temperamental red-haired poetess Zinaida
Hippius, he served on the board of the magazine Northern Messenger,
the first herald of the new movement.
Merezhkovsky's first popular presentation of his antithetical
religious views was the trilogy Christ and Anti-Christ, of which
volume 1, The Death of the Gods: Julian the Apostate, appeared in
1896, followed by The Resurrection of the Gods: Leonardo da Vinci in
1901 and Anti-Christ: Peter and Alexis in 1905. The books' persuasive
power came from Merezhkovsky's success in catching currents then
around him: strong contrasts between social life and spiritual values,
fresh interest in the drama of pagan ancient Athens, and
identification with general western European culture. His translations
of Daphnis and Chloe and works of Pliny, Marcus Aurelius, Miguel de
Cervantes, Gustave Flaubert, and Henrik lbsen, among others, were
valued contributions to Russian literary sophistication.
Merezhkovsky's application of his critical principles to Russian
literature in his Christ and Anti-Christ in Russian Literature:
Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky (1901-1903) imaginatively, if tendentiously,
analyzed West versus East, flesh versus spirit, in the Russian
literary tradition. Even recently, outside of the Soviet Union,
critics who reject both the utilitarian attitude of the naturalist
school and the structural subtleties of the formalist school have
repeated Merezhkovsky's method of explaining a writer's work through
biography, metaphor, and religious values.
Merezhkovsky and his wife collaborated with D. V. Filosofov, with
whom, in 1903, they founded the magazine New Way (it was they who
first published Aleksandr Blok) and the Religious-Philosophical
Society, devoted to discussing issues of Slavophilism and Orthodoxy.
Merezhkovsky's 1907 book, Le tsar et la révolution, written and
published in Paris, well exemplifies the broadly cultural but
conservative views of himself and his followers.
In 1906 Merezhkovsky wrote The Coming Ham, an attack on all forms of
collectivism ("Ham," which refers to the biblical figure, is also the
Russian word for "boor"), although he was "mystically" a supporter of
the 1905 revolution. The failure of constitutional reform in the
autumn of 1905 drove him to Paris, where he lived from 1906 to 1912
and wrote a number of works, including plays such as Paul I (1908).
Returning to Russia, he and his wife, like most intellectuals of the
time, opposed events leading up to World War I and Russian involvement
in it. In 1917 he bitterly opposed the Soviets and with his wife and
two friends crossed into Poland in late 1919 and encouraged
intervention to overthrow the new Soviet government (as he later hoped
the Germans would in 1939-1941). In 1920 he settled in Paris. There he
wrote violent diatribes against the Soviets (The Reign of Anti-Christ,
1926) as well as many novels and essays on Classical and Christian
topics but centered on the one, mystical theme of the "Unknown Jesus."
He died in Paris on Dec. 9, 1941.
samsloan
> wants to locate the book by author's name.
Thanks to you I have discovered that he also has a Wikipedia entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Merezhkovsky
Now, I have to revise my book again before the printer starts working
on it (and charges me for revisions).
Sam Sloan
None
Classic Sam, throw some shit on the ceiling and see what sticks. Then
None
Classic Sam, throw some shit on the ceiling and see what sticks. Then
ChessFire
Actually the Sloan is correct, and Vinci was a Johannine Christian,
that is to say, more after John than Peter [the normative 'Christian'
of the then contemporaneous Catholicism who opposed him].
As to his being gay, it is no disgrace is it? To whom is it a
disgrace? Is it as bad as spewing your booz in public and not owning
said vomit? Not exactly Marine Corps virility, is it. More like a
hissy fit from a fishwife.
Naturally professing others to be gay merely in order to gain some
celebrity from saying so is an obnoxious practice, but these
Mediterraneans had different mores than our own, and [laugh] I just
noticed that I am cross posting to several other newsgroups... but
newsgroups often need this, otherwise there becomes a too familiar
dealing with personalities whose ideas seem all exhausted and
completely predictable as fixed 'types'... from whom no conversation
as such emerges.
Phil Innes
Taylor Kingston
>
> Actually the Sloan is correct, and Vinci was a Johannine Christian,
> that is to say, more after John than Peter [the normative 'Christian'
> of the then contemporaneous Catholicism who opposed him].
>
> As to his being gay, it is no disgrace is it? To whom is it a
> disgrace?
Certainly there was potential for disgrace in Da Vinci's own
society, since he faced legal prosecution for alleged homosexual
activity.
> Naturally professing others to be gay merely in order to gain some
> celebrity from saying so is an obnoxious practice, but these
> Mediterraneans had different mores than our own,
It seems apparent that the Mediterrenean legal authorities of Da
Vinci's time and place did not have any more permissive attitudes than
the gay-bashers of our own era. The only remaining questions is: Did
Frederick Edge try to blackmail Da Vinci too?
David Ames
Classic self-appointed detractor of Sam.
John W Kennedy
> Actually the Sloan is correct, and Vinci was a Johannine Christian,
And he lived in the world of dancing green fairies and chocolate
rainbows and spearmint daisies.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The grand art mastered the thudding hammer of Thor
And the heart of our lord Taliessin determined the war."
-- Charles Williams. "Mount Badon"
None
> > Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) was almost certainly not a believer in
...As to his being gay, it is no disgrace is it? To whom is it a...--
Phil Innes
Gee whiz, you are obsessed with outing folks. Next you'll be claiming
that Richard the Lionheart was queer.
nordicskiv2
<7808b42c-6cdd-4492...@m20g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>,
samsloan <samh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 25, 7:03 am, David Ames <worldrec...@juno.com> wrote:
> > Merejcovsky is alternately spelled Merezhkovsky -- in case anyone
> > wants to locate the book by author's name.
>
> Thank you. Correct.
>
> And it is also spelled Merejkowski.
>
> I have spelled it two different ways in my reprint. I hope the proof
> reader does not complain.
>
> It seems that there are 4 variables in his name.
>
> "j" can be "zh"
> "k" can be "c"
> "w" can be "v"
> "i" can be "y"
>
> So, there are 2 to the 4th power or 16 ways to spell his name.
There are other possibilities, as the terminal "y" can also be (and
by rights should be) "ii" or various other two-letter combinations,
depending upon the transliteration conventions in use.
For what it's worth, the Cyrillic letter you transliterated as "j"
or "zh" is normally transliterated as "zh" in English, but as "j" in
French, since the sound is reasonably close to that of French "j".
Similarly, "k" rather than "c" is normally used in English, and "v"
rather than "w" is normally used, except in transliteration into
German. As noted above, the final "y" is really two Cyrillic letters,
"i" followed by "i kratkoe," and hence is often transliterated as
"ii", "ij", etc. Many, if not most, American research libraries would
transliterate the name as "Merezhkovskii," so that would be a good
place to start.
> I have not been able to find any other books that he wrote,
Possibly because you used a somewhat unconventional transliteration
of the author's name in your search. He wrote much else, including
historical fiction, poetry, dramatic works, critical and philosophical
essays, translations, etc.; he was a prolific author. He was married
to Zinaida Gippius (or Hippius), one of the chief figures in what has
become known as the Symbolist movement in Russian poetry.
> although
> he lived to 1941 and this book is considered a masterpiece. Perhaps if
> I searched under all possible spellings I will find other books.
You will find many.
madams
> > Classic Sam, throw some shit on the ceiling and see what sticks. Then
> > dance around as some of it comes back to earth.
>
> Classic self-appointed detractor of Sam.
-------
Could you gorms stop repeating yourselves
Could you gorms stop repeating yourselves
Thks in advance
Thks in advance
_______
madams
.
>
> At the turn of the 20th century, a brilliant Russian writer, Dmitri
> Merejcovski, wrote this novel, �The Romance of Leonardo Da Vinci�, a
> profound meditation on art and religion.
It seems Mr Merejcovski was something of a religious "nutter" & nazi
sympathiser to boot (jack) - not good...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Merezhkovsky
> This book is filled with historical and semi-historical information.
> It is a historical novel. It is difficult to determine how much is
> based on fact.
Yep...
.
> It is widely believed and even assumed that Leonardo Da Vinci was
> homosexual. Absolute proof is lacking, but he was, as a young man,
> arrested and charged with sodomy, a serious offense. Fortunately, he
> was acquitted.
"Leonardo was accused anonymously of sodomy with a 17 year-old model,
Jacopo Saltarelli, a youth already known to the authorities for his
sexual escapades with men.
IN other words, he was accused of being queer"
---
.
www.EasyToBook.com/RomeQuestion: Are You Saying Leonardo Was Gay?
Answer:
No, I am not saying Leonardo was gay. I don't know if Leonardo was gay.
I don't,
personally, care if Leonardo was gay. Frankly, it's none of my--or,
really,
anybody's--business who (if anyone) or what (if anything) titillated
Leonardo's
libido 500 years after the fact, but I am trying to give those who do
care some
information.
Smarter people than me have said that, yes, Leonardo was gay. Sigmund
Freud
outed him (and blamed his mother) back in 1910. One must of course take
a
post-centuries-mortem psychological analysis with many grains of salt.
Sir
Kenneth Clark, an art historian for whom I have great respect, more
recently
opined that Leonardo was probably a passive homosexual. In other words,
the jury
is out and will remain so until we discover a tell-all biography dating
from
Renaissance Italy.
What is absolutely untrue is the reference in The Da Vinci Code to
Leonardo's
reputation as a "flamboyant homosexual." He was not known as such.
Historical
evidence is sketchy about the latter, and the only thing Leonardo was
"flamboyant" about was his inability to finish projects he started.
Leonardo was rumored to have been homosexual by his contemporaries. He
was, in
fact, twice charged with sodomy in 1476. Though he was imprisoned for
two
months, the charges were dropped for lack of witnesses. It must be duly
noted
that he was one of four people charged with sodomizing the individual in
this
particular case, which was subsequently dropped.
Additionally, accusing someone of sodomy, in 15th century Florence, was
not an
infrequent tactic used to cause someone else trouble. Leonardo was
anonymously
accused, and it's quite tempting to speculate that the accuser was a
lesser-talented artist.
Leonardo never married. If he had female lovers, they have some really,
really
carefully hidden identities. None of that would make him gay by default.
(It
would go some ways toward explaining, however, lack of a readily
available nude
female model.)
As mentioned elsewhere, he drew a lot more young men in his notebooks
than
women. One might assume, from this, that the male figure was more
interesting to
Leonardo than was the female.
Some of the young men he drew were nude. One might assume that this was
either
(a) a reflection of Leonardo's interest in human anatomy, (b) a
reflection of
Leonardo's interest in naked men, (c) a combination of the two or (d)
none of
the above. There is always a danger of (d) being the case, when it comes
to
assumptions.
I brought up the gay "issue" only in conjunction with The Last Supper,
to try to
explain John's gender-bending appearance. My point was, and remains:
"John" is
no anomaly, bolt out of the blue or unprecedented mystery. There is more
than
one instance of Leonardo portraying a guy as a "pretty" young guy.
For Further Reading:
Andersen, Wayne. Freud, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Vulture's Tail.
New York: Other Press, 2001.
___
Go to "Is that a Man or a Woman in The Last Supper?"
See all FAQs about The Last Supper
Related Articles
The Gay da Vinci Code
---
Also: http://www.gayheroes.com/leon.htm is not such a bad site all
things considered & of course here :
http://www.gayheroes.com/leonangel.htm - we're free to marvel @ the
sleazy furtiveness of the censor ...
m.
........