Robert Tulip

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci Maps the Star Path of the Sun

Leonardo’s sublime fresco, The Last Supper, depicts the story of the meal Jesus Christ shared with his twelve disciples the night before he was crucified. My analysis of the stances of Christ and the disciples indicates that Leonardo used the twelve constellations of the zodiac, the star path of the sun, as his template for the painting.

The twelve apostles in the painting are based on the successive star patterns traversed by the sun each year. Christ himself is modelled on the constellation Pisces, the star position of the Sun at the spring equinox through the two millennia of the Christian Era.

The Last Supper shows animated conversation and high drama, as Christ accuses Judas of betrayal.

Here we see the Last Supper figures in detail.

Adding the star map, we obtain the following results, with lines based on direct observation of the visible ecliptic star shapes in the night sky in their correct order.

Last Supper Figures Detail With Constellation Shapes Added

On our right (Christ’s left), we see firstly Aries, with hands in the shape of the three stars of the Ram, speaking with Taurus the Bull, whose right hand makes a V in the shape of the Hyades, the Bull’s Head, and whose left hand has fingers making a circle mapping the Pleiades, the Bull’s Shoulder. Next, Gemini holds out his two arms in parallel, just as the twins Castor and Pollux stand at the end of two parallel lines of stars. This group of three disciples maps the stars which at the time of Christ were passed by the sun in spring.

The next group of three disciples maps the stars of summer, grouped towards Christ to show adoration, awe and insight. Cancer stands with devoted hands to heart, forming the same Y shape as its star group. Leo has left hand curled in the familiar mane of the lion’s stars with Regulus at the heart, and right hand modelled on the lion’s tail, Denebola. The hand of Virgo points to the sky, forming the Virgin Mary shape of the star group, and calling us to look up.

In the middle, Jesus Christ is modelled on the two fishes roped together seen in the stars of Pisces. His head is in the position of the star Alpha Pisces, the knot, Alrisha. This knot binds on earth what is bound in heaven, as explained at Matthew 18:18. Christ's arms map the two lines of stars joined at the knot, forming ropes extending to the two fish seen in his hands. Christ’s right hand forms the asterism of the circlet, the ring of stars seen as a fish where the equinox now stands, while his left hand is the other fish. The reason why Leonardo would have used Pisces to depict Christ is that the Sun begins the natural year at the spring equinox in this constellation, so Christ as Pisces symbolises the Sun.

The next group of three, forming the season of autumn, shows the star shapes of Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius. Libra, conventionally John or the Beloved Disciple, has arms and hands forming the traditional weighing scale shape of its constellation. Next comes an interesting pair. Scorpio, Saint Peter, conceals his sword in the position marked in the sky as the sting of the scorpion, with his arms and head curving to form the scorpion’s body and claws. In front of Scorpio we see Sagittarius, Judas clutching his bag of thirty pieces of silver. Judas exactly models the dense star field seen in this constellation of the Archer where the zodiac crosses the Milky Way. The head of Judas is in front of the heart of Peter.

Finally, the three winter months show Capricorn, with head and hands in the triangle shape of the sea-goat, then Aquarius with arm draped across Capricorn and using the matching star group of the Water Bearer as template, and finally Pisces, using the same star shape as Christ, but with the knot an actual knot of his robe above his shoulder, and hands again forming one round fish, the circlet, and another fish as an extended line from the rope, just like its star group, and rather like Christ.

This embedded astronomy reflects the natural scientific philosophy of Leonardo da Vinci. Renowned as a keenly observant and accurate depicter of nature, Leonardo has used The Last Supper to show the great central story of the Gospels, that Jesus Christ is a mythological earthly reflection of a perceived heavenly reality. The heavenly reality mapped in The Last Supper is the actual visible natural path of the sun through the stars.

Leonardo’s Notebooks help to explain his motives. Forty years before Copernicus, Leonardo wrote ‘the sun does not move’, a statement that anticipated the new heliocentric understanding, and showed his keen interest in astronomy. He frequently alludes to the idea that the microcosm is a reflection of the macrocosm, for example comparing the human body to the earth, as in the Vitruvian Man. In The Last Supper, Leonardo has compared the ideal human to the observable star path of the sun, on earth as in heaven, as the Lord’s Prayer puts it. His method is the same as the ancient myths seen in the stories of the star groups, updated for Christianity.

In view of the heretical charges levelled against claims of association between Jesus Christ and the Sun, it is hardly surprising that Leonardo did not explain his source or motive for his hidden code in The Last Supper. What is extremely surprising is that this clear pattern, the real Da Vinci Code, has been sitting in front of people for five hundred years but we have been unable to see it. Reasons for this blindness include the hostility of the church towards science, and the association between the zodiac stars and astrology. These have apparently been enough to ensure that no one has imagined this way of looking at the painting as a real natural code. What greater illustration could we find of the power of supernatural dogma to blind people to simple observation!

Studied in detail, this stellar explanation is compelling. The deep message of this finding is that a hidden natural religion has coursed through human life, seen by geniuses like Leonardo but invisible to others. The natural religion inspiring The Last Supper understands the true connection between humanity and the cosmos. Leonardo is saying that the story of Jesus Christ is primarily an allegory for the Sun, our real source of light and life.

Mageth

Your analysis? Googling "last supper zodiac", the notion that the fresco is tied to the zodiac appears to have been around for a while.

Robert Tulip

Yes, my analysis. I have previously posted this material in preliminary form at booktalk, baut and freethought nation. If you can find a previous direct matching of the figures to the stars then cite it. I certainly did not get it from anyone else. As I have previously mentioned at these other sites, there was at least one earlier claim that the Last Supper is linked to the zodiac, but the one I saw failed to see the actual encoding of the ecliptic stars in the painting.

Looking now, http://wiki.astro.com/astrowiki/en/L...;s_Last_Supper asserts links from right to left but fails to see the star connections, and mixes up Scorpio and Sagittarius.