Italian musician uncovers hidden music in Da Vinci's 'Last Supper'
By Ariel David, The Associated Press
ROME - It's a new Da Vinci code but this time it could be for real.
An Italian musician and computer technician claims to have
uncovered musical notes encoded in Leonardo Da Vinci's "Last
Supper," raising the possibility that the Renaissance genius
might have left behind a sombre composition to accompany the
scene depicted in the 15th-century wall painting.
"It sounds like a requiem," Giovanni Maria Pala said. "It's like
a soundtrack that emphasizes the passion of Jesus."
Painted from 1494 to 1498 in Milan's Church of Santa Maria delle
Grazie, the "Last Supper" vividly depicts a key moment in the
Gospel narrative: Jesus' last meal with the 12 Apostles before
his arrest and crucifixion, and the shock of Christ's followers
as they learn that one of them is about to betray him.
Pala, a 45-year-old musician who lives near the southern Italian
city of Lecce, began studying Leonardo's painting in 2003, after
hearing on a news program that researchers believed the artist
and inventor had hidden a musical composition in the work.
"Afterward, I didn't hear anything more about it," he said in
an interview with The Associated Press. "As a musician, I wanted
to dig deeper."
In a book released Friday in Italy, Pala explains how he took
elements of the painting that have symbolic value in Christian
theology and interpreted them as musical clues.
Pala first saw that by drawing the five lines of a musical staff
across the painting, the loaves of bread on the table as well
as the hands of Jesus and the Apostles could each represent a
musical note.
This fit the relation in Christian symbolism between the bread,
representing the body of Christ, and the hands, which are used
to bless the food, he said. But the notes made no sense musically
until Pala realized that the score had to be read from right to
left, following Leonardo's particular writing style.
In his book - "La Musica Celata" ("The Hidden Music") - Pala
also describes how he found what he says are other clues in the
painting that reveal the slow rhythm of the composition and the
duration of each note.
The result is a 40-second "hymn to God" that Pala said sounds
best on a pipe organ, the instrument most commonly used in
Leonardo's time for spiritual music. A short segment taken from
a CD of the piece contained a Bach-like passage played on the
organ. The tempo was almost painfully slow but musical.
Alessandro Vezzosi, a Leonardo expert and the director of a
museum dedicated to the artist in his hometown of Vinci, said
he had not seen Pala's research but that the musician's hypothesis
"is plausible."
Vezzosi said previous research has indicated the hands of the
Apostles in the painting can be substituted with the notes of a
Gregorian chant, though so far no one had tried to work in the
bread loaves.
"There's always a risk of seeing something that is not there,
but it's certain that the spaces (in the painting) are divided
harmonically," he said. "Where you have harmonic proportions,
you can find music."
Vezzosi also noted that though Leonardo was more noted for his
paintings, sculptures and visionary inventions, he was also a
musician. Da Vinci played the lyre and designed various
instruments. His writings include some musical riddles, which
must be read from right to left.
Reinterpretations of the "Last Supper" have popped up ever since
"The Da Vinci Code" fascinated readers and moviegoers with
suggestions that one of the apostles sitting on Jesus' right is
Mary Magdalene, that the two had a child and that their bloodline
continues.
Pala stressed that his discovery does not reveal any supposed
dark secrets of the Catholic Church or of Leonardo, but instead
shows the artist in a light far removed from the conspiratorial
descriptions found in fiction.
"A new figure emerges - he wasn't a heretic like some believe,"
Pala said. "What emerges is a man who believes, a man who really
believes in God."
On the Net: Pala's site (in Italian), http://www.lamusicacelata.it
Official site for the "Last Supper," http://www.cenacolovinciano.it
Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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