A newly identified portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci, was displayed in London as the world marked the 500th anniversary of the death of the artist and inventor.
The sketch was made by an unidentified assistant shortly before the master’s death in 1519. Only one other portrait has survived from the artist’s lifetime, aside from self-portraits.
The film, like the book, was considered controversial. It was met with especially harsh criticism by the Catholic Church for the accusation that it is behind a two-thousand-year-old cover-up concerning what the Holy Grail really is and the concept that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married and that the union produced a daughter, as well as its treatment of the organizations Priory of Sion and Opus Dei. Many members urged the laity to boycott the film. In the book, Dan Brown states that the Priory of Sion and “all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”
The film grossed $224 million in its worldwide opening weekend and a total of $758 million worldwide, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 2006, as well as Howard’s highest-grossing film to date. However, the film received generally negative reviews from critics. It was followed by two sequels, Angels & Demons (2009) and Inferno (2016).
Picture Credit : Google