excerpt from interview with author Dan Brown:"WHERE DID YOU GET THE IDEA FOR THE DA VINCI CODE?"
This particular story kept knocking on my door until I answered. I first learned of the mysteries hidden in Da Vinci's paintings while I was studying art history at the University of Seville in Spain. Years later, while researching Angels & Demons and the Vatican Secret Archives, I encountered the Da Vinci enigma yet again. I arranged a trip to the Louvre Museum where I was fortunate enough to view the originals of some of Da Vinci's most famous works as well as discuss them with an art historian who helped me better understand the mystery behind their surprising anomalies. From then on, I was captivated. I spent a year doing research before writing The Da Vinci Code.
"SOME OF THE HISTORY IN THIS NOVEL CONTRADICTS WHAT I LEARNED IN SCHOOL. WHAT SHOULD I BELIEVE?"Since the beginning of recorded time, history has been written by the "winners" (those societies and belief systems that conquered and survived). Despite an obvious bias in this accounting method, we still measure the "historical accuracy" of a given concept by examining how well it concurs with our existing historical record. Many historians now believe (as do I) that in gauging the historical accuracy of a given concept, we should first ask ourselves a far deeper question: How historically accurate is history itself?
I look forward to the discussion (and ensuing controversy, I assume) this might generate in the populace...it'll be interesting!- sylphiend
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