The new DaVinci code - updated with the graphic

By Libby

Conspiracy theorist that I am, I just love this story. The DaVinci Code deepens.

MILAN (Reuters) - A new theory that Leonardo's "Last Supper" might hide within it a depiction of Christ blessing the bread and wine has triggered so much interest that Web sites connected to the picture have crashed.

Now Slavisa Pesci, an information technologist and amateur scholar, says superimposing the "Last Supper" with its mirror-image throws up another picture containing a figure who looks like a Templar knight and another holding a small baby.
"I came across it by accident, from some of the details you can infer that we are not talking about chance but about a precise calculation," Pesci told journalists when he unveiled the theory earlier this week.

Websites www.leonardodavinci.tv, www.codicedavinci.tv, www.cenacolo.biz and www.leonardo2007.com had 15 million hits on Thursday morning alone, organizers said, adding they were trying to provide a more powerful server for the sites.

I'll admit I was curious enough to click over to see the evidence for myself. The sites are all still down. What fun. It reminds me of the days when everyone was playing the Beatles White Album backwards and were convinced that Paul was dead.

Update: Another reason I love the intertubes. Gaius figured out how to manipulate the photo. [Click to embiggen]. That's his graphic and he's already thinking up other fun ways to use the technique.

I suggested he try Dali or Picasso. Or better yet to find an ear in a Van Gogh and create his own theory. I have a feeling he's going to use it on photos of his friends though or maybe Hillary Clinton.

By the way, for the record -- fond as I am of conspiracy theories in general, I am selective in what I believe. I don't see any knights and babies in that graphic, (although I do kind of see a turkey on the right), and even I find it hard to swallow DaVinci could have envisioned a time when this sort of technology was possible and had done it deliberately to send some kind of message.