A disciple by any other name is a groupie.

So along with Magritte, one of my favourite artists is Leonardo Da Vinci. Not so much for his paintings but because he was multi-talented, a ‘Renaissance man’ if you will. He had such great appreciation for nature and animals; he was a vegetarian and even had a habit of buying caged birds to release them (man after my own heart). His Biographer Vasari described him as having ‘great strength and generosity’. In other words; a nice guy genius.

One of his most famous paintings (next to the Mona Lisa) is ‘The Last Supper’ is a 15th century mural which depicts the moment when Jesus announces one of his disciples will betray him. Due to dirt, pollution and bad restoration efforts the painting was virtually unrecognisable by the 1970s and so a major restoration was undertaken. It took 22 years; the painting was finally put back on display in 1999 but visitors have to book ahead and can only stay 15 minutes.

It’s most recent claim to fame is its inclusion in Dan Brown’s novel ‘The Da Vinci Code’. In which Brown’s characters reveal that the person on Jesus’ right was not John but Mary Magdalene (because the figure is girlish) and thus indicates that she was not a prostiute (never actually said outright in the Bible) but Jesus’ wife and the mother of his child. Brown does say that these views were not supposed to be new or shocking as they were originally the main topic of the book ‘The Templar Revelation’.

They have a point. It’s entirely possible that the figure is Mary Magdalene as John the Baptiste was said to have been excecuted a few days before the last supper and so could not have been present. However, there are thirteen figures (including Mr. Christ) so who’s the twelfth figure? Well, according to scripture Mary Magdeline was present at the last supper to wash the feet of the disciples or something similar. Whether or not she sat at the table is unlear. She was certainly a devoted follower and the only one to stay with Jesus while he was crucified while the other disciples fled and she was the first to see him after he ressurected. All this leads people to believe that she was married to Jesus and they had a child which if you think about it isn’t an unreasonable assumption (assuming you believe he was a real person).

Further fuelling the theories is a recent discovery that if you reverse the painting to create a mirror image and then superimpose it on top of the original it shows Mary Magdalene/John holding a baby. It’s entirely possible this was purposely done by Da Vinci as he was big on mirror images.

Others have said all this is simply conspiracy theories run amock. The figure in question is wearing male clothes and John was believed to be the youngest of the group; often depicted looking a bit feminine with long wavy hair. Also some of the original sketches are preserved by Da Vinci and none of them show female faces.

The main thing I think we need to remember here is a fact that seems to have been overlooked; it’s not a photo. It’s a painting done some thousand years after the event was supposed to have taken place. Even if the figure is Mary Magdalene (and personally I think it is) it doesn’t, by any stretch of anybody’s reasoning, mean she was there or married to Jesus or had his baby. It was just Leonardo’s opinon of what took place.

Another thing about the Last Supper is that it’s relentlessly parodied. These are some of my favourties:

House

The Sacrament of The Last Supper by Salvadore Dali

Battlestar Galactica

There are literally hundreds you can see a bunch of them here.