影片《达·芬奇密码》根据美国作家丹·布朗的同名悬疑小说改编。哈佛大学的符号学专家罗伯特·兰登《达芬奇密码》(汤姆·汉克斯饰)在法国巴黎出差期间的一个午夜接到一个紧急电话，得知卢浮宫博物馆年迈的馆长被人杀害在卢浮宫的博物馆里，人们在他的尸体旁边发现了一个难以捉摸的密码。
兰登与法国一位颇有天分的密码破译专家索菲·奈芙(奥黛丽·塔图饰)，在对一大堆怪异的密码进行整理的过程当中，居然发现一连串的线索就隐藏在达·芬奇的艺术作品当中。这些线索，大家都清楚可见，然而却被画家巧妙地隐藏起来。
兰登无意中非常震惊地发现，已故的博物馆馆长（也就是奈芙的祖父）竟然是峋山隐修会（Priory of Sion）的重要成员。峋山隐修会是一个真实存在的秘密组织，其成员包括牛顿、维克多·雨果与达·芬奇等多位历史名人。兰登的直觉告诉他，他和奈芙是在找寻一个石破天惊的历史秘密……
《达芬奇密码》-剧情
巴黎深夜，罗浮宫德高望重的馆长，在馆内被人杀死，旁边写了一串人家看不懂的字。一串字里唯一看得懂的是罗伯特·兰登这个人名，这人是哈佛大学历史教授，也是一位符号学家，馆长与他素未谋面，但约好第二天见面。警察局找到了这位教授住的旅馆，并带到罗浮宫命案现场。
其中有一名女警向教授偷偷透露自己是馆长的孙女身份，他们经几番猜测，两人最后在达·芬奇《蒙娜丽莎的微笑》背后，找到了馆长生前留下的纸条，是一首语意含糊的诗。后来被调查员警发现情况不对，教授带着馆长的孙女逃跑，这一对男女不但成了通辑犯，另一个延续了将近千年的秘密组织，也开始追逐他们。故事就这样展开序幕……
畅销 500 万本的小说，当然不只是单纯的推理故事，真正引人入胜的，是背后所传递的信息～延续两千年的宗教争议，有关传说耶穌娶妻生子。耶穌成为“基督”，是在公元三百多年以后的事，早期的教会崇拜“伟大的母亲”，而代表的女性，却是淫荡悔改、以后跟随耶穌的抹大拉的玛利亚，她同时也被认为是耶穌的妻子，为耶穌生育，象徵“圣杯”。
“圣杯”传说是耶穌在最后晚餐用的酒杯，同时也是被钉在十字架上接盛耶穌的鲜血的酒杯，这正是这本小说的主轴，各路人马争夺“圣杯”之战。
《达芬奇密码》-演员介绍
汤姆·汉克斯是美国演员，连续两届以《费城》和《阿甘正传》荣获奥斯卡影帝，自90年代中期以来惊人地保持着数一数二的江湖地位。6岁时父母离异，随着厨师父亲各处跑，高中时开始着迷演戏，大学念到一半干脆辍学全身投入演艺圈。
1979年首次演出电影小角色，接着进入电视圈演出一堆喜剧。1984年他以《美人鱼》崭露头角，四年后因《飞进未来》首度入围奥斯卡最佳男主角。1992年《红粉联盟》和1993年《西雅图夜未眠》使他成为票房巨星，真正的突破是《费城》。擅长表现平凡人的不平凡一面。
自拍罢《幸福终点站》后，汤姆·汉克斯已鲜有大作了，之后接拍的《师奶杀手》因票房惨淡而让这位影帝略显颓势。2006年又在朗·霍华德导演的影片《达芬奇密码》中出演男主角。虽然近几年来汉克斯没有给影迷带来足够震撼的作品，但他在影迷心目中的地位却是难以动摇的。
《达芬奇密码》-影片评价
《达芬奇密码》是一部忠于原著的电影，但是很可惜，影片没有带给观众任何惊喜。
——USA Today
电影很平庸，没有悬念也没有浪漫，更重要的是没有趣味。
——《波士顿先驱报》
尽管受到了不同的评价，但是这部影片依然能够在全球有一个盛大的票房开局。因为全世界有无数双好奇的眼睛等着看这部拥有四千万读者的小说改编成电影会是什么样子。
——路透社
《达芬奇密码》-关于主题
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
因涉及敏感的宗教题材，《达· 芬奇密码》自开拍伊始便风波不断，天主教联盟和事工会团体的纷至沓来的抗议和反对信件使该片成为2005-2006年度最具争议的影片。天主事工会曾希望影片隐去组织名称，在这一要求遭到拒绝后，事工会发起了一项为自己正名的运动，通过各种媒体大作宣传，用各种方式说明小说用错误的方式描写其组织。罗马一牧师甚至推出了自己的博客，反驳《达·芬奇密码》的“不实之词”。抗议的程度随着电影上映的逼近而加剧，但有关专家却号召所有的天主教徒都应去看这部谬误百出的电影，只有这样才能发现其中的错误。
虽然布朗的原著序言宣称“本书中关于艺术品、建筑、文献和秘密仪式的所有描述全都确有其事”，但导演朗·霍华德则一直明智地高举“虚构”大旗：“影片不会在宗教问题上过度纠缠。丹·布朗是一个成功的作家而非宗教和历史学家。我们之所以拍这部电影是因为我喜欢这个故事。”并坦言，影片的重点是惊悚悬疑的情节。制片方哥伦比亚的发言人也为此证实：“我们想做的只是拍一部宗教色彩不会过于明显的好片子。”
为达惊悚目的，让观众大呼过瘾，“和看小说一样带劲”，朗·霍华德做足功课，重看了许多包括《驱魔人》、《罗斯玛丽的婴儿》等在内的经典惊悚片。在保持小说故事框架的前提下，由金牌编剧阿齐瓦·高斯曼操刀，对小说中的“反天主教主题”作了改动，但“其中最为精彩之处绝对要表现出来”。
《达芬奇密码》-关于演员
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
《达·芬奇密码》的演员阵容超级豪华。有着过硬演技却日渐发福的汤姆·汉克斯虽在外表上并不符合极具魅力的罗伯特·兰登教授，但用朗·霍华德的话来说老汤哥属于“最全面的演员”，而“一个真正优秀的演员可胜任一切表演”；主演过《天使爱美丽》的法国女星奥黛丽·多杜出任干练的索菲·奈芙，对其以往的一贯纯真灵动进行了彻底颠覆，让朗·霍华德“之前的担心完全多余”；而有着 “全世界最酷的法国男人”头衔法国影坛硬汉尚·雷诺出演狡猾严酷法舍探长；在英国戏剧界有“莎翁专业户”之称、并在柏林获得终身成就奖的传奇性演员伊恩· 麦克莱恩爵士出演提彬爵士；被美国媒体誉为自休·格兰特以来最受欢迎的英国演员保罗·贝塔尼扮演白化病人塞拉斯修士，被制片人布莱恩·格雷泽称为影片“惊悚气氛的最好砝码”。
《达芬奇密码》-外景地
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
《达·芬奇密码》占尽地利，连连得手于世界上最著名的博物馆和教堂。
为达完美的真实效果，使小说中的情景被百分之百还原，能否在原著开头处的法国卢浮宫实地拍摄成为关键。2004年12 月，霍华德和制片人在巴黎挑选女演员时意外接到法国总统希拉克办公室打来的电话，同希拉克的一小时会晤言谈甚欢，遂轻易地敲定入驻卢浮宫拍摄的特许，从而成为继《卢浮魅影》后第二部进入卢浮宫取景的电影。在一周的拍摄期间，剧组只能在晚上以及每周二博物馆关闭日拍摄。有意思的是，自2005年5月影片开拍后，卢浮宫虽将票价上调，但影片的走红却带给卢浮宫创下历史新高的700万人次。
小说重头戏之一的威斯敏斯特教堂断然拒绝了制片方入内拍摄的请求，并发表声明：“虽然这是一本精彩的小说，但我们绝不赞同书中涉及的有争议的、极度主观的暗示性内容，也不同意它对于基督教和《新约》的观点。”
相对于威斯敏斯特教堂的坚决说“不”，修建于公元11世纪、其内部结构与威斯敏斯特教堂十分相近的林肯大教堂却敞开大门。而同影片达成拍摄协议的还有爱丁堡附近的建于15世纪的罗斯林大教堂，在小说中罗斯林大教堂和一度强盛的“圣殿骑士团”有关联，因此这个占地不大的中世纪教堂两年来的游客数剧增为以前的三倍。剧组为林肯大教堂和罗斯林大教堂分别支付了10万英镑的高额租用费。
从中渔利的还有曾向开放的英格兰南部的温彻斯特大教堂。此教堂不仅赚得2万英镑的出租费，且教堂管理人员趁着影片日渐高涨的人气决定于2006年3月1日起对每位访客强制收取4英镑的入场费，以支付不断增加的营运费用。
《达芬奇密码》-幕后花絮
·卢浮宫的镇馆之宝《蒙娜丽莎》是一个极其重要的道具，但因拍电影的灯光会对这幅名画造成损害，因此，出于安全和保护的因素，剧组只得退而求其次地使用了一个比例精确的复制品。这一秘密的泄露让霍华德感到痛苦：“我十分讨厌别人问我这样的问题，但是……”他停顿了几秒钟，“毕竟这幅画是无价之宝！”令人安慰的是，影片中保存《蒙娜丽莎》这幅油画的房间是真的。
·在卢浮宫拍电影就像在做梦。由于折服于卢浮宫的艺术魅力，汤姆·汉克斯将其房车停在停在卢浮宫外面的街道上，老汤哥每次前往拍摄地点都必须穿过无数画廊：“这里名作众多，目不暇接--《约瑟芬皇后加冕》、《雷奥尼达在温泉关》，从这里走着去工作的感觉实在棒极了！”
·背负巨大舆论压力的汤姆·汉克斯为在外形上向角色靠拢，一面积极减肥，一面将常年的板刷头变成了“飘逸”的长发，但看过《达·芬奇密码》试片的观众依然对老汤哥的仿学者发型吹毛求疵，将其喻为“前额光秃，后脑勺一个鸭尾巴”！
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
·小说提及的维雷特城堡也是影片拍摄地之一。这座建于1668年的城堡专为路易十四驻意大利大使所建，现在的主人是美国房产大亨。据悉，剧组从17间房中辟出6间专供演员使用，但老汤哥放弃了享受贵族待遇的机会，选择和妻子孩子住在演员唐纳德·萨瑟兰巴黎的家中，尽享平民之乐。
·为更好扮演白化杀手塞拉斯，保罗·贝塔尼不满足于化妆时才有的白化病人独有的惨白皮肤，还不惜将一头金发染成白色，将深蓝的眼睛改为血红。但这一形象却引起美国白化病和色素沉淀组织的极大愤慨，该组织认为如此描写是沿袭好莱坞许多电影对白化病同性恋的丑化。
·伊恩·麦克莱恩信仰基督教，当剧组在英格兰的林肯郡拍摄遭遇英国宗教人士的屡屡抗议示威时，麦克莱恩数次出头，号召人们的态度不可太过偏激，而应以全新的角度审视一贯坚持的信仰。
·2005年8月16日，就在《达·芬奇密码》拍得热火朝天之际，为抗议林肯大教堂对剧组行方便之事，一来自“和平与仁慈”妇女协会的玛丽·迈克尔跪在林肯大教堂的台阶前，使得大教堂的负责人奈特不得不让步，说小说“非常牵强、充满异端”。
《达芬奇密码》-新片看点
1.大腕云集
汤姆·汉克斯的长发造型绝无仅有；“天使爱美丽”奥黛丽·塔图摇身变成深沉、果敢、智慧的密码专家；“警察专业户”“杀手莱昂”让·雷诺这回亦正亦邪；此外还有《蜘蛛侠2》章鱼博士、《指环王》甘道夫、《防火墙》里的绑匪。
2.标新立异
《最后的晚餐》里的耶稣门徒有一个是女人；耶稣结过婚，有了孩子，并且血脉延续到现代；牛顿和达· 芬奇都担任过隐修会会长……电影编排了许多情节来证明上述观点。
3.南腔北调
罗伯特·兰登的美式英语，索菲的法语腔英语，雷·提彬的纯正伦敦腔，演员身份和角色设定完全符合，所以我们有机会听到演员自己的腔调。
4.音乐精彩
如何用声画表现人物心理，《达·芬奇密码》改编电影必须过这道坎儿。它的办法是：音乐。破译密码时，从一头雾水到茅塞顿开的心理变化过程，电影音乐将其细腻、准确而富感染力地展现出来。
5.珍贵影像
《蒙娜丽莎》《岩间圣母》《最后的晚餐》等传世画作的原作出现在镜头里。卢浮宫实景拍摄，观众仿佛实地历险。塞纳河、布洛涅森林、罗斯林教堂都出现在片里。最令人难忘的还是各种风格的欧洲古代教堂。
1.最意外的破译
兰登根据索尼埃留下的密码，一路破译下去，居然在《蒙娜丽莎》后面找到一把钥匙。整个破译过程意外迭出、精彩纷呈。
2.最惊险的倒车
兰登和索菲被警察发现，他们来不及调转车头，只好倒车逃跑。在车水马龙的大街上，倒着开的小汽车居然跑赢了迎头追上来的警车。
3.最搞笑的急智
银行行长冒充卡车司机，差点被警察识破。警察看到司机手腕上的劳力士金表，很是纳闷。行长颇有急智，趁机向警察兜售：“冒牌货！你想要？给你，35块……不行？那30块？”不耐烦的警察放走了卡车。
4.最骇人听闻的
雷·提彬对着《最后的晚餐》侃侃而谈：圣杯其实是一个女人，而这个女人正是耶稣的妻子……这个场面很平静，但雷·提彬的主张，实在让人脑袋“嗡嗡嗡”。
5.最亦真亦幻的
兰登和索菲向牛顿墓地走去。牛顿生活时代的伦敦街景与现代的伦敦街景在银幕上重迭起来，前者是粗颗粒、高反差的画面，后者是正常色彩还原的画面，一时间让人产生不知“今夕何夕”的超现实感。
6.最激动人心的
影片最后，兰登刮胡子受伤，受到水池里血线的启发，想到抹大拉遗骸的藏身之地。他来到卢浮宫，地下静静躺??待，剑刃和圣杯一起看护着她的门外，她躺在大师们令人钟爱的杰作的怀抱中，在繁星闪烁的天空下终于得到了安息。”随着镜头，谜语被完美破解。
《达芬奇密码》-改编亮点
1.克服恐惧
兰登因为7岁的时候掉进井中，因此对密闭的环境非常紧张，不时表现出恐惧的感觉。片中也着力表现，除了一开始他与法希进入卢浮宫坐电梯是原书已有情节外，另增加了一个细节：他和索菲从苏黎世存托银行出来，为避警方追捕，进入装甲运钞车这样一个密闭的空间，躲在车厢内紧张得发抖。索菲用小时候妈妈安抚她的方法—————把双手搓热了，捂在兰登的两边太阳穴上，同时柔声安慰鼓励。
2.密码筒
原着中的密码筒有两个，第一个打开是一个更小的密码筒。片中只出现一个密码筒，就是原着中的第二个密码筒及提示语句，避免了情节的重复。
3.法希身份
原着法希是一个好大喜功的警察，而在片中，他成为事工会的教徒。事工会的主教阿润沙（原着译为阿林加洛沙）告诉法希，他听到罗伯特·兰登的忏悔，正是兰登杀了卢浮宫博物馆馆长雅克·索尼埃，因此，法希将兰登锁定为凶手，并且将案情进展随时报告给阿润沙。但是最后关头，他看出了破绽，发现阿润沙编造了谎言，因而不再怀疑兰登。
4.圣杯秘密
圣杯的秘密为何不向世人公开，这是改编的最大亮点。原着中，索菲与奶奶、弟弟相认，得知郇山隐修会根本不打算向世人揭开圣杯的秘密，于是决定放弃向世人揭示这一足以摧毁基督教权威的秘密，致使影片一开始郇山隐修会的4名守护者宁死不说出圣杯的秘密显得多余，全书不免有虎头蛇尾之感。而在片中，兰登与索菲在罗斯林教堂没有找到抹大拉玛利亚的石棺，误以为已经被索尼埃毁掉，而索菲要证明自己实为耶稣的后代缺少DNA实证。正灰心之际，兰登突然发现卢浮宫玻璃金字塔的设计暗合圣杯存放地的提示语，接着镜头转入卢浮宫玻璃金字塔底下，正是抹大拉玛利亚的石棺，影片在这里结束。这样的结局，使得全片前后呼应，更能自圆其说。
《达芬奇密码》-新片快评
惊悚悬疑不输原著
电影《达·芬奇密码》的紧张惊悚气氛、环环相扣故事、高潮迭起情节，丝毫不比原着逊色。
导演为了制造紧张惊悚，大量运用诡秘阴沉的背景音乐。此外，大量血淋淋的镜头吓得观众连
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
连发出惊呼。片中多次出现白化杀手塞拉斯对自己的肉体进行惩罚的特写镜头。塞拉斯脱去外衣，露出健美的裸体，细看上去伤痕累累。接着他取下带钉的苦修带，使劲勒上铁链，痛得浑身颤抖。塞拉斯在圣叙尔皮斯教堂行凶处理得相当好。先是修女桑德琳接到电话，半夜安排塞拉斯参观教堂，突然窗户被阴风猛地关上，暗示不祥。全片多次用闪回表现塞拉斯杀害不同人物，使人一看到他就联想起残暴、血腥。环环相扣的解谜过程与步步紧逼的追杀情节紧密交织，相当刺激。索菲和兰登自进入卢浮宫博物馆起开始解谜，用字母换位法找到达·芬奇《蒙娜丽莎》，继而找到《岩间圣母》，发现索尼埃留下的钥匙，与警卫打斗；在出逃途中，索菲又展示了一把车技，倒着开“都市精灵”，冲过车流和人群……基本上每转换一个场景就出现一个高潮。不过影片也有小小的遗憾：背景知识太多，在两个半小时内，将之全盘灌输给观众，使得台词多而密集，一派喋喋不休的架式，与整片惊悚悬疑的气氛不太融合。
《达芬奇密码》-首映
根据丹·布朗畅销小说改编的同名电影《达·芬奇密码》即将于本月19号在全球上映。但是，和该小说之前遭遇的官司危机一样，这部影片还没上映，就已经在众多国家遭到了不同程度的抵制。
印度大约2000名天主教徒前天在孟买举行抗议集会，认为该片有关情节亵渎了天主教。由于抗议不断，该片在印度的首映已被推迟。在英国，影片遇到了分级争议。英国电影分类局专家认为，这部电影用于增加紧张气氛的配乐会让儿童感到恐怖。如不进行重大修改，只能获得受限制的 15级许可。而在新加坡，这部电影也被列为"成人题材"的NC-16级电影。
5月17日晚美国影片《达-芬奇密码》在北京亮相。由于时差原因，《达-芬奇密码》在中国首映的时间实际上比戛纳还要早六七个小时，从而成为此片在世界范围内的最早亮相。众多明星均捧场出席了该首映礼，因在北京拍摄影片《满城尽带黄金甲》的周润发也携夫人陈荟莲出席。
《达-芬奇密码》的首映典礼在东方新世纪影城所在的君悦酒店宴会大厅举行。入场嘉宾在进场前可在一个特制的暗箱中扮作 “蒙娜丽莎”进行拍照。20位通过网络游戏在全国范围海选产生的特殊嘉宾在首映式上登场，在几位明星来宾的评判下，他们一起通过一系列密码破译游戏展开了激烈角逐，最终产生了4位分数最高的幸运儿。他们将代表中国的“密码迷”们与其它国家的游戏优胜者一起参加精彩纷呈的“达芬奇欧洲之旅”。
《达芬奇密码》-波折经历
世界天主教会教皇本笃十六世的副手号召起了信众，各宗教团体开始了公开指责地址，白化病患者为自己的形象再次被典型化愤怒，涉及的旅游地点格外蓬
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
勃，钻研起密码学的人持续增多，游戏开发纳入进程，宗教热潮空前高涨，有事没事的闲人们也准备起了长期的激烈争论……谎言？真相？阴谋论？蒙娜丽莎神秘的微笑再次成为了茶余饭后的谈资。
不过一部虚构小说，怎么就能引得西方社会各界人士肉搏？是它蝉联美国畅销书排行榜117周，全球销量超过4000万本，成为美国今年最受欢迎的小说的事实？还是因为丹·布朗在《达芬奇密码》里讲的故事，完全是和西方人的宗教支柱唱对台戏？争论从来没有答案，我们只知道，不管是多少的抗议，多么沸沸嚷嚷的涉嫌侵权案，那个小说里承载了千古复杂秘密的达芬奇密码，受关注的程度还是一直升温！
对于虎视眈眈的好莱坞来说，这样不缺谈资的题材绝对是电影票房的根基，争议越大关注越多票房越高，改编剧本只是早晚而已。更何况，卢浮宫、达· 芬奇、圣经、宗教、密码学、符号学、惊悚、悬疑和让人心惊胆颤解密追踪，《达芬奇密码》从一开始就明显具备银幕发光元素。震荡了世界书市的超级畅销小说即将面世，还有什么比这更值得宣传呢？！
The title of the novel refers to, among other things, the fact that the murder victim is found in the Denon Wing of the Louvre, naked and posed like Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawing, the Vitruvian Man, with a cryptic message written beside his body and a pentacle drawn on his stomach in his own blood.
The novel has provoked a popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail legend and Magdalene's role in the history of Christianity. The book has been extensively denounced by many Christian denominations as an attack on the Roman Catholic Church. It has also been criticized for its historical and scientific inaccuracy.
The book is a worldwide bestseller that sold 80 million copies as of 2009[update] and has been translated into 44 languages. This makes it, as of 2010, the best selling English language novel of the 21st century and the 2nd biggest selling novel of the 21st century in any language. Combining the detective, thriller, and conspiracy fiction genres, it is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon, the first being his 2000 novel Angels & Demons. In November 2004, Random House published a Special Illustrated Edition with 160 illustrations. In 2006, a film adaptation was released by Sony's Columbia Pictures.
This book describes the attempts of Robert Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University, to solve the murder of renowned curator Jacques Saunière of the Louvre Museum in Paris. A baffling cipher is found near his body. Saunière's granddaughter, Sophie Neveu and Langdon attempt to sort out the bizarre riddles and are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci.
The unraveling of the mystery requires solutions to a series of brain-teasers, including anagrams and number puzzles. The ultimate solution is found to be intimately connected with the possible location of the Holy Grail and to a mysterious society called the Priory of Sion, as well as to the Knights Templar. The story also involves the Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei.
Details
The story starts off with the murder of Jacques Saunière (the Grand Master Of Priory of Sion, although virtually no one knows that at the time) by Silas (acting on behalf of someone known only as The Teacher) to extract the location of the "keystone", an item that leads to the Holy Grail. The police summon Robert Langdon, who is delivering a lecture in Paris, to the murder scene and ask for his help in deciphering the code Sauniere left on and near his body. Bezu Fache, the Captain of the Central Directorate Judicial Police, believes Langdon is the prime suspect in the murder.
Sophie Neveu shows up at the murder scene as a police cryptographer and quickly gains Langdon's trust. Jacques Saunière was Neveu's grandfather and they were very close to each other until she discovered him participating in a pagan sex ritual (Hieros Gamos) at his home in Normandy, when she made a surprise visit there during a break from boarding school. (That she had observed something is mentioned and hinted at several times throughout the story, but what it is that she saw is revealed to no one, including the reader, until near the end when she tells Robert).
Langdon and Neveu find a baffling cipher near Saunière's body. These clues were meant to lead to a second set of clues. By deciphering her grandfather's clues, Neveu finds the painting, which has a key hidden behind it with an address and symbols of the Priory of Sion were written on it. Working together, Langdon and Neveu trick the police, flee the scene and figure out the secret of the key.
The key opens a safe deposit box at the Paris branch of the Depository Bank of Zurich. Saunière's account number at the bank is a 10-digit number listing the digits of the first eight Fibonacci numbers: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21.
Inside the safe deposit box they find the keystone which is actually a large cryptex, a cylindrical device supposedly invented by Leonardo Da Vinci for transporting secure messages. To open it the combination of rotating components must be arranged in the correct order. If the cryptex is forced open an enclosed vial of vinegar ruptures and dissolves the message, which was written on papyrus. The rosewood box containing the large cryptex contains clues to the combination of the cryptex, written in backwards script in the same manner as Leonardo's journals.
The instructions that Saunière revealed to Silas at gunpoint are actually a well-rehearsed lie, namely that the keystone is buried in the Church of Saint-Sulpice beneath an obelisk that lies exactly along the ancient "Rose Line" (the former Prime Meridian which passed through Paris before it was redesignated to pass through Greenwich). The message beneath the obelisk simply contains a reference to a passage in the Book of Job (38:11a) which reads in part "Hitherto shalt thou go and no further."(KJV) When Silas reads this, he realizes he has been tricked.
Still being chased by the police, Langdon and Neveu take the keystone to Sir Leigh Teabing (an expert in the Holy Grail and Langdon's friend). They flee the country in Teabing's private plane, and on the plane figure out how to open the cryptex, but the large cryptex actually contains a second smaller cryptex with a second riddle that reveals its combination. The riddle, which says to seek the orb that should be on the tomb of "a knight a pope interred," refers not to a medieval knight, but rather to the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton, who was buried in Westminster Abbey, and was eulogized by Alexander Pope (A. Pope).
It turns out that Teabing is the Teacher who assigned Silas to kill Jacques Saunière and he also had information on the identities of the leaders of the Priory of Sion who then bugged their offices and had Silas assassinate them. Rémy is his collaborator. It is Teabing who contacted Bishop Aringarosa, hiding his identity, and tricked him into financing the plan to find the Grail. He never intended to hand the Grail over to Aringarosa but is taking advantage of Opus Dei's resolve to find it. Teabing believes that the Priory of Sion has broken its vow to reveal the secret of the Grail to the world at the appointed time. He plans to steal the Grail documents and reveal them to the world himself, ruining the church, which he blames for the event. It was he who informed Silas that Langdon and Sophie Neveu were at his chateau. He did not seize the keystone from them himself because he did not want to reveal his identity. He summoned Silas to seize the keystone in his house, but himself thwarted Silas, in order to gain Langdon and Sophie's further help with decoding the cryptex. Subsequently, the police raid the house, having followed the tracking device in the truck Langdon had stolen while escaping from the bank. Teabing led Neveu and Langdon to the Temple Church in London, knowing full well that it was a dead end, in order to stage the hostage scene with Rémy and thereby obtain the keystone without revealing his real plot to Langdon and Neveu.
To erase all knowledge of his work, Teabing kills Rémy by giving him cognac laced with peanut powder, knowing Rémy has a deadly allergy to peanuts. Thus, Rémy dies of an anaphylactic shock. Teabing also anonymously tells the police that Silas is hiding in the London headquarters of Opus Dei.
In a showdown with Teabing in Westminster Abbey, Langdon secretly opens the second cryptex and removes its contents before destroying it in front of Teabing. Teabing is arrested and led away while fruitlessly begging Langdon to tell him the contents of the second cryptex and the secret location of the Grail.
Bezu Fache finds out that Neveu and Langdon are innocent after Bishop Aringarosa contacts him privately to confess. Fache then cancels the warrants for the arrest of Neveu and Langdon.
Silas accidentally shoots Aringarosa outside the London headquarters of Opus Dei while fleeing from the police. Realizing his terrible error and that he has been duped, Aringarosa tells Bezu Fache to give the bearer bonds in his briefcase to the families of the murdered leaders of the Priory of Sion. Silas dies from his fatal wounds.
The final message inside the second keystone actually does not refer to Rosslyn Chapel, although the Grail was indeed once buried there, below the Star of David on the floor (the two interlocking triangles are the "blade" and "chalice," i.e., male and female symbols).
The docent in Rosslyn Chapel is Sophie's long-lost brother. Sophie had been told as a child that he was killed with her parents and grandmother in a car accident.
The guardian of Rosslyn Chapel, Marie Chauvel, is Sophie's long-lost grandmother, and the wife of Jacques Saunière. She is the woman who participated in the sex ritual with Jacques Saunière. It is revealed that Sophie is a descendant of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. The Priory of Sion hid her identity to protect her from possible threats to her life.
Even though all four of the leaders of the Priory of Sion are killed, the secret is not lost, since there is still a contingency plan (never revealed) that will keep the organization and its secret alive.
The real meaning of the last message is that the Grail is buried beneath the small pyramid (i.e., the "blade," a male symbol) directly below the inverted glass pyramid of the Louvre (i.e., the "chalice," a female symbol, which Langdon and Sophie ironically almost crashed into while making their original escape from Bezu Fache). It also lies beneath the "Rose Line," which is similar to "Rosslyn." Langdon figures out this final piece to the puzzle in the last pages of the book, but he does not appear inclined to tell anyone about this. See La Pyramide Inversée for further discussion.
Characters
These are the principal characters that drive the plot. Some have names that are puns, anagrams or hidden clues:
* Robert Langdon
* Jacques Saunière
* Sophie Neveu
* Bezu Fache
* Silas
* Manuel Aringarosa
* André Vernet
* Leigh Teabing
* Rémy Legaludec
* Jérôme Collet
* Marie Chauvel Saint-Clair
* Pamela Gettum
Secret of the Holy Grail
Detail of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci
In the novel Leigh Teabing explains to Sophie Neveu that the figure at the right hand of Jesus in Leonardo da Vinci's painting of "The Last Supper" is not the apostle John, but actually Mary Magdalene. In the novel, Magdalene was the wife of Jesus Christ and was pregnant with his child when Jesus was crucified. Leigh Teabing says that the absence of a chalice in Leonardo's painting means Leonardo knew that Mary Magdalene was the actual Holy Grail and the bearer of Jesus' blood in the form of the child she was carrying. Leigh Teabing goes on to explain that this idea is supported by the shape of the letter "V" that is formed by the bodily positions of Jesus and Mary, as "V" is the symbol for the sacred feminine. The absence of the Apostle John in the painting is explained by knowing that John is also referred to as "the Disciple Jesus loved", code for Mary Magdalene. The book also notes that the color scheme of their garments are inverted: Jesus wears a red blouse with royal blue cape; John/Mary wears a royal blue blouse with red cape — perhaps symbolizing two bonded halves of marriage.
According to the novel, the secrets of the Holy Grail, as kept by the Priory of Sion are as follows:
* The Holy Grail is not a physical chalice, but a woman, namely Mary Magdalene, who carried the bloodline of Christ.
* The Old French expression for the Holy Grail, San gréal, actually is a play on Sang réal, which literally means "royal blood" in Old French.
* The Grail relics consist of the documents that testify to the bloodline, as well as the actual bones of Mary Magdalene.
* The Grail relics of Mary Magdalene were hidden by the Priory of Sion in a secret crypt, perhaps beneath Rosslyn Chapel.
* The Church has suppressed the truth about Mary Magdalene and the Jesus bloodline for 2000 years. This is principally because they fear the power of the sacred feminine in and of itself and because this would challenge the primacy of Saint Peter as an apostle. More than that, it would prove that Jesus was human, and therefore not divine.
* Mary Magdalene was of royal descent (through the Jewish House of Benjamin) and was the wife of Jesus, of the House of David. That she was a prostitute was slander invented by the Church to obscure their true relationship. At the time of the Crucifixion, she was pregnant. After the Crucifixion, she fled to Gaul, where she was sheltered by the Jews of Marseille. She gave birth to a daughter, named Sarah. The bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene became the Merovingian dynasty of France.
* The existence of the bloodline was the secret that was contained in the documents discovered by the Crusaders after they conquered Jerusalem in 1099 (see Kingdom of Jerusalem). The Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar were organized to keep the secret.
The secrets of the Grail are connected, according to the novel, to Leonardo Da Vinci's work as follows:
* Leonardo was a member of the Priory of Sion and knew the secret of the Grail. The secret is in fact revealed in The Last Supper, in which no actual chalice is present at the table. The figure seated next to Christ is not a man, but a woman, his wife Mary Magdalene. Most reproductions of the work are from a later alteration that obscured her obvious female characteristics.
* The androgyny of the Mona Lisa reflects the sacred union of male and female implied in the holy union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Such parity between the cosmic forces of masculine and feminine has long been a deep threat to the established power of the Church. The name Mona Lisa is actually an anagram for "Amon L'Isa", referring to the father and mother gods of Ancient Egyptian religion (namely Amun and Isis).
A number of different authors also speculate about the possibility of Jesus becoming a father. There are at least three children attributed to him, a daughter Tamar, born before the Crucifixion, and two sons Jesus (the Jesus Justus from the New Testament) and Josephes, both born after the Resurrection. Although their names are now part of the common culture of conspiracy writers, only two decades ago, when The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was written, the names were not mentioned. The royal descents that lie at the heart of The Da Vinci Code mystery centre on the family of Josephes, who is supposed to be the grandfather of Aminadab del Graal, first of the "Fisher Kings". However the genealogies that are quoted in Grail lore appear to record too few generations, with children regularly being born to fathers in their 40s.
Reception
Brown's novel was a major success in 2004 and was outsold only by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It won Book Sense's 2004 Book of the Year Award in the Adult Fiction category. It spawned a number of offspring works and drew positive reviews from The New York Times, People,[citation needed] and The Washington Post.[citation needed] Additionally, The Da Vinci Code has inspired a number of novels very similar to it, including Raymond Khoury's The Last Templar and Steve Berry's The Templar Legacy.[citation needed] In a 2008 survey of more than 15,000 Australian readers, the book came in fourth in a list of the 101 best books ever written.
The book was not generally well received by critics, however, and it has been the subject of numerous negative appraisals concerning its literary value and its portrayal of history. Its writing and historical accuracy were reviewed scathingly by The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Salon.com, among others.
Criticism
Main article: Inaccuracies in The Da Vinci Code
Historical inaccuracies
The book generated criticism when it was first published, due to its inaccurate description of core aspects of Christianity, the history of the Catholic Church, and descriptions of European art, history, and architecture. The book has received mostly negative reviews from Catholic and other Christian communities.
Many critics say that Brown should have done much more research before publishing this book. On February 22, 2004, an article titled "The Last Word: The Da Vinci Con" appeared in the New York Times by writer Laura Miller. Miller attacks the Da Vinci Code on multiple levels, referring to it as "based on a notorious hoax", "rank nonsense", and "bogus." She points out how heavily the book is based on the fabrications of Pierre Plantard (the Priory of Sion did not exist until Plantard created it) who in 1953 was arrested and convicted of fraud.
Critics accuse Brown of distorting and fabricating history. For example, Marcia Ford wrote:
Regardless of whether you agree with Brown's conclusions, it's clear that his history is largely fanciful, which means he and his publisher have violated a long-held if unspoken agreement with the reader: Fiction that purports to present historical facts should be researched as carefully as a nonfiction book would be.
Richard Abanes wrote:
The most flagrant aspect … is not that Dan Brown disagrees with Christianity but that he utterly warps it in order to disagree with it … to the point of completely rewriting a vast number of historical events. And making the matter worse has been Brown's willingness to pass off his distortions as ‘facts' with which innumerable scholars and historians agree.
The book opens with the claim by Dan Brown that "The Priory of Sion — a European secret society founded in 1099 — is a real organization". The Priory of Sion itself was actually a hoax created in 1956 by a Mr. Pierre Plantard. The author also claims that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents … and secret rituals in this novel are accurate"; but this claim is disputed by almost all academic scholars in the fields the book discusses.
Numerous works have been published that explain in detail why any claim to accuracy is difficult to substantiate, while two lawsuits have been brought alleging plagiarism in The Da Vinci Code. The first suit for copyright infringement was filed in February 2006 in a British court by the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, a purportedly nonfiction account of Mary Magdalene's role as the wife of Jesus of Nazareth and the mother of his child, was found in Dan Brown's favor. No verdict has yet been rendered on a second suit, filed in August of the same year, in the United States by Jack Dunn, the author of The Vatican Boys.
A third author, Lewis Perdue, alleged that Brown plagiarized from two of his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy, originally published in 1983, and Daughter of God, originally published in the year 2000. He sought to block distribution of the book and film. However, Judge George Daniels of the US District Court in New York ruled against Perdue in 2005, saying that "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God" and that "Any slightly similar elements are on the level of generalised or otherwise unprotectable ideas." Perdue appealed, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the original decision, saying Mr. Perdue's arguments were "without merit".
Dan Brown himself dilutes the suggestion of some of the more controversial aspects being fact on his web site: "The "FACT" page makes no statement whatsoever about any of the ancient theories discussed by fictional characters. Interpreting those ideas is left to the reader". However, it also says that "these real elements are interpreted and debated by fictional characters", "it is my belief that some of the theories discussed by these characters may have merit." and "the secret behind The Da Vinci Code was too well documented and significant for me to dismiss." Brown's ambiguity on the matter continues to fuel debate over the factual content of the novel.
Brown's earlier statements about the accuracy of the historical information in his book, however, were far more strident. In 2003, while promoting his novel, he was asked in interviews what parts of the history in his novel actually happened. He replied "Absolutely all of it." In a 2003 interview with CNN's Martin Savidge he was again asked how much of the historical background was true. He replied, "99% is true ... the background is all true". Asked by Elizabeth Vargas in an ABC News special if the book would have been different if he had written it as non-fiction he replied, "I don't think it would have." More recently Brown has avoided interviews and has been rather more circumspect about the accuracy of his claims in his few public statements. He has also, however, never retracted any of his earlier assertions that the history in the novel is accurate, despite substantial academic criticism of his claims.
In 2005, UK TV personality Tony Robinson edited and narrated a detailed rebuttal of the main arguments of Dan Brown and those of Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, "The Real Da Vinci Code", shown on British TV Channel 4. The program featured lengthy interviews with many of the main protagonists cited by Brown as "absolute fact" in The Da Vinci Code. Arnaud de Sède, son of Gérard de Sède, stated categorically that his father and Plantard had made up the existence of the Prieuré de Sion, the cornerstone of the Jesus bloodline theory - to quote Arnaud de Sede in the program, "frankly, it was piffle". The program also cast severe doubt on the Rosslyn Chapel association with the Grail and on other related stories like the alleged landing of Mary Magdalene in France.
Portrayal of early Christianity
According to The Da Vinci Code, the Roman Emperor Constantine I suppressed Gnosticism because it portrayed Jesus as purely human. The novel's argument is as follows. Constantine wanted Christianity to act as a unifying religion for the Roman Empire. He thought Christianity would appeal to pagans only if it featured a demigod similar to pagan heroes. According to the Gnostic Gospels, Jesus was merely a human prophet, not a demigod. Therefore, to change Jesus' image, Constantine destroyed the Gnostic Gospels and promoted the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which portray Jesus as divine or semidivine.
In fact, Gnosticism did not portray Jesus as merely human. Some Gnostic writings do depict Jesus interacting with his disciples in a wholly human way, one example being the Gospel of Mary,[citation needed] but the general Gnostic depiction of Jesus is not clear-cut. Many Gnostic writings depict Christ as purely divine, his human body being a mere illusion (see Docetism). Some Gnostic sects saw Christ this way because they regarded matter as evil, and therefore believed that a divine spirit would never have taken on a material body. The Da Vinci Code also portrays the Council of Nicaea's decision to recognize the fully human and divine aspects of Christ as being a close vote, while some authors dispute this.
Literary criticism
The novel has also attracted criticism in literary circles for its alleged lack of artistic or literary merit and its allegedly stereotyped portrayal of British and French characters.
Salman Rushdie claimed during a lecture, "Do not start me on 'The Da Vinci Code,' A novel so bad that it gives bad novels a bad name."
Stephen Fry has referred to Brown's writings as "complete loose stool-water" and "arse gravy of the worst kind." In a live chat on June 14, 2006, he clarified, "I just loathe all those book[s] about the Holy Grail and Masons and Catholic conspiracies and all that botty-dribble. I mean, there's so much more that's interesting and exciting in art and in history. It plays to the worst and laziest in humanity, the desire to think the worst of the past and the desire to feel superior to it in some fatuous way."
In his 2005 University of Maine Commencement Address, best-selling author Stephen King put Dan Brown's work and "Jokes for the John" on the same level, calling such literature the "intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese." The New York Times, while reviewing the movie based on the book, called the book "Dan Brown's best-selling primer on how not to write an English sentence". The New Yorker reviewer Anthony Lane refers to it as "unmitigated junk" and decries "the crumbling coarseness of the style." Linguist Geoffrey Pullum and others posted several entries critical of Dan Brown's writing, at Language Log, calling Brown one of the "worst prose stylists in the history of literature" and saying Brown's "writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad." Roger Ebert described it as a "potboiler written with little grace and style," although he did say it did "supply an intriguing plot." In his review of the film National Treasure, he wrote: "I should read a potboiler like The Da Vinci Code every once in a while, just to remind myself that life is too short to read books like The Da Vinci Code."
Parodies
2005
The book was parodied by Adam Roberts with The Va Dinci Cod, and by Toby Clements with The Asti Spumante Code.
A telemovie spin-off of the Australian television series Kath & Kim parodied the film version as Da Kath and Kim Code in late 2005.
2006
The BBC program Dead Ringers parodied the Da Vinci Code, calling it the Da Rolf Harris Code.
Popular South African political cartoonist Zapiro published a book collection of his strips entitled Da Zuma Code, which parodies the former deputy president Jacob Zuma.
2007
The book was parodied in the South Park episode "Fantastic Easter Special" and Robert Rankin's novel The Da-da-de-da-da Code.
The characters Lucy and Silas are parodied in the film Epic Movie. The movie starts with a scene similar to the opening of The Da Vinci Code, with Silas chasing the orphan Lucy, a parody of Sophie Neveu, in a museum. Throughout the movie, Silas speaks in Latin. However, the translations for his speech are intentionally false for the sake of parody (e.g. Silas says "Et tu, Brute?" to Aslo, when the film translates it as "I'm Rick James, bitch!").
Szyfr Jana Matejki (Jan Matejko's Cipher) is a Polish parody by Dariusz Rekosz. Sequel Ko(s)miczna futryna: Szyfr Jana Matejki II (Co[s]mic Door-frame: Jan Matejko's Cipher II) was released in 2008. Main character is inspector Józef Świenty who tries to solve The Greatest Secret of Mankind (Największa Tajemnica Ludzkości) - parentage of Piast dynasty.
The book was parodied in the American Dad episode "Black Mystery Month". But instead Stan searches for the controversial truth that Mary Todd Lincoln created peanut butter, not George Washington Carver.
2008
In 2008, it was parodied in the second series of That Mitchell and Webb Look as "The Numberwang Code", a trailer for a fictional film based on a recurring sketch on the show.
Also in March 2008, the Irish blogger Twenty Major, parodied elements in his first book The Order of the Phoenix Park.
Inspiration and influences
The novel is part of the exploration of alternative religious history. Its principal source book is listed as per the court case, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince's The Templar Revelation, as well as the books by Margaret Starbird. An earlier novel had already used the theme of a Jesus bloodline: The Dreamer of the Vine, by Liz Greene, published in 1980 (Richard Leigh's sister and Michael Baigent's girlfriend at that time). The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (which is explicitly named, among several others, at the beginning of chapter 60), was stated by Dan Brown not to be amongst his primary research material for the book.
Having paid acknowledgement to the above books as sources of inspiration, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code contains the overriding salient point in its plot: that the Merovingian kings of France were descendants from the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
In reference to Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent (two of the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail), Brown named the principal Grail expert of his story "Leigh Teabing" (an anagram of "Baigent Leigh"). Brown confirmed this during the court case. In reply to the suggestion that Lincoln was also referenced, as he has medical problems resulting in a severe limp, like the character of Leigh Teabing, Brown stated he was unaware of Lincoln's illness and the correspondence was a coincidence. After losing before the High Court in July 12, 2006, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh appealed, unsuccessfully, to the Court of Appeal.
Following the trial, it was found that the publicity had actually significantly boosted UK sales of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
There are also some striking similarities to 1996 video game Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars.
Release details
The book has been translated into over 40 languages, primarily in hardcover. Alternate formats include audio cassette, CD, and e-book. Most recently, a Trade Paperback edition was released March 2006 in conjunction with the film.
Major English-language (hardcover) editions include:
* (US) The Da Vinci Code, April 2003 (First edition), Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-50420-9.
* The Da Vinci Code, Special Illustrated Edition, November 2, 2004, Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-51375-5 (as of January 2006, has sold 576,000 copies).
* (UK) The Da Vinci Code, April 2004, Corgi Adult. ISBN 0-552-14951-9.
* (UK) The Da Vinci Code: The Illustrated Edition, October 2, 2004, Bantam Press. ISBN 0-593-05425-3.
* (US/Canada) The Da Vinci Code (Trade Paperback edition), March 2006, Anchor Books.
* On March 28, 2006, Anchor Books released 5 million paperback copies of the book, and Broadway Books released 200,000 paperback copies of The Da Vinci Code Special Illustrated Edition.
* On May 19, the day of the film's release, Doubleday and Broadway Books released The Da Vinci Code Illustrated Screenplay: Behind the Scenes of the Major Motion Picture, by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, with the introductions by Ron Howard and Dan Brown. It included film stills, behind-the-scenes photos and the full script. There were 25,000 copies of the hardcover, and 200,000 of the paperback version.
Puzzles
Book jacket
Part of the advertising campaign for the novel was that the artwork in the American version of the bookjacket held various codes, and that the reader who solved them via the author's website would be given a prize. Several thousand people actually solved the codes, and one name was randomly chosen to be the winner, with the name announced on live television, Good Morning America, in early 2004. The prize was a trip to Paris.
The five hidden puzzles reveal:
* That the back of the book jacket conceals latitude and longitude coordinates, written in reverse, light red on dark red. Adding one degree to the latitude gives the coordinates of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Northern Virginia, which is the location of a mysterious sculpture called Kryptos. The coordinates were taken from part of the decrypted text of part 2 of the sculpture (part 4 has never been solved). When Brown has been asked why the coordinates are one degree off, his reply has been, "The discrepancy is intentional".
* Bold letters are present on the book jacket. There is a secret message hidden in the text of the book flaps. The message: Is there no help for the widow's son (a reference to Freemasonry).
* The words "only WW knows" can be seen on the back cover. It is a phrase printed invertedly, in the torn part of the book cover. This too is a reference to part 2 of the Kryptos sculpture.
* A circle with numbers, between the Doubleday logo and the barcode, reveals a secret message. These are the chapter numbers where the initial letters are arranged in Caesar box format, revealing the code "E Pluribus Unum".
* There is reverse writing on the cover of the book, which is the riddle for the first cryptex.
Brown, both via his website and in person, has stated that the puzzles in the bookjacket give hints about the subject of his next novel, The Lost Symbol. This repeats a theme from his earlier novels. For example, Deception Point had an encrypted message that, when solved, said, "The Da Vinci Code will surface".
In the simplified Chinese version of The Da Vinci Code, the cover has a secret text; however, this text can be easily seen. It reads: "13-3-2-1-1-8-5 O, Draconian devil! Oh, Lame Saint! P.S. Find Robert Langdon." This is the multiply encrypted clue written in invisible ink next to the dead body in the museum, which kicks off the plot of the entire novel.
Pages
All of the puzzles listed below can be found within the page headers in the Mass Market US Paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code.
* Page 60: "Ankh Fendile" (anagram of "knife handle") in place of "Dan Brown"
* Page 95: "De Lancs" (anagram of "candles") in place of "Da Vinci"
* Page 138: "Das Brilli" (anagram of "billiards") in place of "Dan Brown"
* Page 141: "La Sufrete" (anagram of "true/false") in place of "Da Vinci"
* Page 155: "sos" in place of page number
* Page 192: "Reon Tigaldo" (anagram of "Golden Ratio") in place of "Dan Brown"
* Page 217: "De Ysosy" (anagram of "odyssey") in place of "Da Vinci"
* Page 262: "Mer Reve" (anagram of "Vermeer") in place of "Dan Brown"
* Page 322: page number replaced by three asterisks
Also in the body text on page 138, the word "numbers" in the sentence "Tearing it open, she found four Paris phone numbers" is printed in a bold medieval typeface, instead of the typical serif typeface used throughout the rest of the book.
Film
Columbia Pictures adapted the novel to film, with a screenplay written by Akiva Goldsman, and Academy Award winner Ron Howard directing. The film was released on May 19, 2006, and stars Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu, and Sir Ian McKellen as Leigh Teabing. The film had an opening weekend gross of $77,073,388 and grossed $217,536,138 in 2006, making it the fifth highest grossing movie of 2006. The film did very well overseas, grossing over $758,239,852 worldwide. On November 14, 2006 the movie was released on DVD.
兰登与法国一位颇有天分的密码破译专家索菲·奈芙(奥黛丽·塔图饰)，在对一大堆怪异的密码进行整理的过程当中，居然发现一连串的线索就隐藏在达·芬奇的艺术作品当中。这些线索，大家都清楚可见，然而却被画家巧妙地隐藏起来。
兰登无意中非常震惊地发现，已故的博物馆馆长（也就是奈芙的祖父）竟然是峋山隐修会（Priory of Sion）的重要成员。峋山隐修会是一个真实存在的秘密组织，其成员包括牛顿、维克多·雨果与达·芬奇等多位历史名人。兰登的直觉告诉他，他和奈芙是在找寻一个石破天惊的历史秘密……
《达芬奇密码》-剧情
巴黎深夜，罗浮宫德高望重的馆长，在馆内被人杀死，旁边写了一串人家看不懂的字。一串字里唯一看得懂的是罗伯特·兰登这个人名，这人是哈佛大学历史教授，也是一位符号学家，馆长与他素未谋面，但约好第二天见面。警察局找到了这位教授住的旅馆，并带到罗浮宫命案现场。
其中有一名女警向教授偷偷透露自己是馆长的孙女身份，他们经几番猜测，两人最后在达·芬奇《蒙娜丽莎的微笑》背后，找到了馆长生前留下的纸条，是一首语意含糊的诗。后来被调查员警发现情况不对，教授带着馆长的孙女逃跑，这一对男女不但成了通辑犯，另一个延续了将近千年的秘密组织，也开始追逐他们。故事就这样展开序幕……
畅销 500 万本的小说，当然不只是单纯的推理故事，真正引人入胜的，是背后所传递的信息～延续两千年的宗教争议，有关传说耶穌娶妻生子。耶穌成为“基督”，是在公元三百多年以后的事，早期的教会崇拜“伟大的母亲”，而代表的女性，却是淫荡悔改、以后跟随耶穌的抹大拉的玛利亚，她同时也被认为是耶穌的妻子，为耶穌生育，象徵“圣杯”。
“圣杯”传说是耶穌在最后晚餐用的酒杯，同时也是被钉在十字架上接盛耶穌的鲜血的酒杯，这正是这本小说的主轴，各路人马争夺“圣杯”之战。
《达芬奇密码》-演员介绍
汤姆·汉克斯是美国演员，连续两届以《费城》和《阿甘正传》荣获奥斯卡影帝，自90年代中期以来惊人地保持着数一数二的江湖地位。6岁时父母离异，随着厨师父亲各处跑，高中时开始着迷演戏，大学念到一半干脆辍学全身投入演艺圈。
1979年首次演出电影小角色，接着进入电视圈演出一堆喜剧。1984年他以《美人鱼》崭露头角，四年后因《飞进未来》首度入围奥斯卡最佳男主角。1992年《红粉联盟》和1993年《西雅图夜未眠》使他成为票房巨星，真正的突破是《费城》。擅长表现平凡人的不平凡一面。
自拍罢《幸福终点站》后，汤姆·汉克斯已鲜有大作了，之后接拍的《师奶杀手》因票房惨淡而让这位影帝略显颓势。2006年又在朗·霍华德导演的影片《达芬奇密码》中出演男主角。虽然近几年来汉克斯没有给影迷带来足够震撼的作品，但他在影迷心目中的地位却是难以动摇的。
《达芬奇密码》-影片评价
《达芬奇密码》是一部忠于原著的电影，但是很可惜，影片没有带给观众任何惊喜。
——USA Today
电影很平庸，没有悬念也没有浪漫，更重要的是没有趣味。
——《波士顿先驱报》
尽管受到了不同的评价，但是这部影片依然能够在全球有一个盛大的票房开局。因为全世界有无数双好奇的眼睛等着看这部拥有四千万读者的小说改编成电影会是什么样子。
——路透社
《达芬奇密码》-关于主题
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
因涉及敏感的宗教题材，《达· 芬奇密码》自开拍伊始便风波不断，天主教联盟和事工会团体的纷至沓来的抗议和反对信件使该片成为2005-2006年度最具争议的影片。天主事工会曾希望影片隐去组织名称，在这一要求遭到拒绝后，事工会发起了一项为自己正名的运动，通过各种媒体大作宣传，用各种方式说明小说用错误的方式描写其组织。罗马一牧师甚至推出了自己的博客，反驳《达·芬奇密码》的“不实之词”。抗议的程度随着电影上映的逼近而加剧，但有关专家却号召所有的天主教徒都应去看这部谬误百出的电影，只有这样才能发现其中的错误。
虽然布朗的原著序言宣称“本书中关于艺术品、建筑、文献和秘密仪式的所有描述全都确有其事”，但导演朗·霍华德则一直明智地高举“虚构”大旗：“影片不会在宗教问题上过度纠缠。丹·布朗是一个成功的作家而非宗教和历史学家。我们之所以拍这部电影是因为我喜欢这个故事。”并坦言，影片的重点是惊悚悬疑的情节。制片方哥伦比亚的发言人也为此证实：“我们想做的只是拍一部宗教色彩不会过于明显的好片子。”
为达惊悚目的，让观众大呼过瘾，“和看小说一样带劲”，朗·霍华德做足功课，重看了许多包括《驱魔人》、《罗斯玛丽的婴儿》等在内的经典惊悚片。在保持小说故事框架的前提下，由金牌编剧阿齐瓦·高斯曼操刀，对小说中的“反天主教主题”作了改动，但“其中最为精彩之处绝对要表现出来”。
《达芬奇密码》-关于演员
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
《达·芬奇密码》的演员阵容超级豪华。有着过硬演技却日渐发福的汤姆·汉克斯虽在外表上并不符合极具魅力的罗伯特·兰登教授，但用朗·霍华德的话来说老汤哥属于“最全面的演员”，而“一个真正优秀的演员可胜任一切表演”；主演过《天使爱美丽》的法国女星奥黛丽·多杜出任干练的索菲·奈芙，对其以往的一贯纯真灵动进行了彻底颠覆，让朗·霍华德“之前的担心完全多余”；而有着 “全世界最酷的法国男人”头衔法国影坛硬汉尚·雷诺出演狡猾严酷法舍探长；在英国戏剧界有“莎翁专业户”之称、并在柏林获得终身成就奖的传奇性演员伊恩· 麦克莱恩爵士出演提彬爵士；被美国媒体誉为自休·格兰特以来最受欢迎的英国演员保罗·贝塔尼扮演白化病人塞拉斯修士，被制片人布莱恩·格雷泽称为影片“惊悚气氛的最好砝码”。
《达芬奇密码》-外景地
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
《达·芬奇密码》占尽地利，连连得手于世界上最著名的博物馆和教堂。
为达完美的真实效果，使小说中的情景被百分之百还原，能否在原著开头处的法国卢浮宫实地拍摄成为关键。2004年12 月，霍华德和制片人在巴黎挑选女演员时意外接到法国总统希拉克办公室打来的电话，同希拉克的一小时会晤言谈甚欢，遂轻易地敲定入驻卢浮宫拍摄的特许，从而成为继《卢浮魅影》后第二部进入卢浮宫取景的电影。在一周的拍摄期间，剧组只能在晚上以及每周二博物馆关闭日拍摄。有意思的是，自2005年5月影片开拍后，卢浮宫虽将票价上调，但影片的走红却带给卢浮宫创下历史新高的700万人次。
小说重头戏之一的威斯敏斯特教堂断然拒绝了制片方入内拍摄的请求，并发表声明：“虽然这是一本精彩的小说，但我们绝不赞同书中涉及的有争议的、极度主观的暗示性内容，也不同意它对于基督教和《新约》的观点。”
相对于威斯敏斯特教堂的坚决说“不”，修建于公元11世纪、其内部结构与威斯敏斯特教堂十分相近的林肯大教堂却敞开大门。而同影片达成拍摄协议的还有爱丁堡附近的建于15世纪的罗斯林大教堂，在小说中罗斯林大教堂和一度强盛的“圣殿骑士团”有关联，因此这个占地不大的中世纪教堂两年来的游客数剧增为以前的三倍。剧组为林肯大教堂和罗斯林大教堂分别支付了10万英镑的高额租用费。
从中渔利的还有曾向开放的英格兰南部的温彻斯特大教堂。此教堂不仅赚得2万英镑的出租费，且教堂管理人员趁着影片日渐高涨的人气决定于2006年3月1日起对每位访客强制收取4英镑的入场费，以支付不断增加的营运费用。
《达芬奇密码》-幕后花絮
·卢浮宫的镇馆之宝《蒙娜丽莎》是一个极其重要的道具，但因拍电影的灯光会对这幅名画造成损害，因此，出于安全和保护的因素，剧组只得退而求其次地使用了一个比例精确的复制品。这一秘密的泄露让霍华德感到痛苦：“我十分讨厌别人问我这样的问题，但是……”他停顿了几秒钟，“毕竟这幅画是无价之宝！”令人安慰的是，影片中保存《蒙娜丽莎》这幅油画的房间是真的。
·在卢浮宫拍电影就像在做梦。由于折服于卢浮宫的艺术魅力，汤姆·汉克斯将其房车停在停在卢浮宫外面的街道上，老汤哥每次前往拍摄地点都必须穿过无数画廊：“这里名作众多，目不暇接--《约瑟芬皇后加冕》、《雷奥尼达在温泉关》，从这里走着去工作的感觉实在棒极了！”
·背负巨大舆论压力的汤姆·汉克斯为在外形上向角色靠拢，一面积极减肥，一面将常年的板刷头变成了“飘逸”的长发，但看过《达·芬奇密码》试片的观众依然对老汤哥的仿学者发型吹毛求疵，将其喻为“前额光秃，后脑勺一个鸭尾巴”！
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
·小说提及的维雷特城堡也是影片拍摄地之一。这座建于1668年的城堡专为路易十四驻意大利大使所建，现在的主人是美国房产大亨。据悉，剧组从17间房中辟出6间专供演员使用，但老汤哥放弃了享受贵族待遇的机会，选择和妻子孩子住在演员唐纳德·萨瑟兰巴黎的家中，尽享平民之乐。
·为更好扮演白化杀手塞拉斯，保罗·贝塔尼不满足于化妆时才有的白化病人独有的惨白皮肤，还不惜将一头金发染成白色，将深蓝的眼睛改为血红。但这一形象却引起美国白化病和色素沉淀组织的极大愤慨，该组织认为如此描写是沿袭好莱坞许多电影对白化病同性恋的丑化。
·伊恩·麦克莱恩信仰基督教，当剧组在英格兰的林肯郡拍摄遭遇英国宗教人士的屡屡抗议示威时，麦克莱恩数次出头，号召人们的态度不可太过偏激，而应以全新的角度审视一贯坚持的信仰。
·2005年8月16日，就在《达·芬奇密码》拍得热火朝天之际，为抗议林肯大教堂对剧组行方便之事，一来自“和平与仁慈”妇女协会的玛丽·迈克尔跪在林肯大教堂的台阶前，使得大教堂的负责人奈特不得不让步，说小说“非常牵强、充满异端”。
《达芬奇密码》-新片看点
1.大腕云集
汤姆·汉克斯的长发造型绝无仅有；“天使爱美丽”奥黛丽·塔图摇身变成深沉、果敢、智慧的密码专家；“警察专业户”“杀手莱昂”让·雷诺这回亦正亦邪；此外还有《蜘蛛侠2》章鱼博士、《指环王》甘道夫、《防火墙》里的绑匪。
2.标新立异
《最后的晚餐》里的耶稣门徒有一个是女人；耶稣结过婚，有了孩子，并且血脉延续到现代；牛顿和达· 芬奇都担任过隐修会会长……电影编排了许多情节来证明上述观点。
3.南腔北调
罗伯特·兰登的美式英语，索菲的法语腔英语，雷·提彬的纯正伦敦腔，演员身份和角色设定完全符合，所以我们有机会听到演员自己的腔调。
4.音乐精彩
如何用声画表现人物心理，《达·芬奇密码》改编电影必须过这道坎儿。它的办法是：音乐。破译密码时，从一头雾水到茅塞顿开的心理变化过程，电影音乐将其细腻、准确而富感染力地展现出来。
5.珍贵影像
《蒙娜丽莎》《岩间圣母》《最后的晚餐》等传世画作的原作出现在镜头里。卢浮宫实景拍摄，观众仿佛实地历险。塞纳河、布洛涅森林、罗斯林教堂都出现在片里。最令人难忘的还是各种风格的欧洲古代教堂。
1.最意外的破译
兰登根据索尼埃留下的密码，一路破译下去，居然在《蒙娜丽莎》后面找到一把钥匙。整个破译过程意外迭出、精彩纷呈。
2.最惊险的倒车
兰登和索菲被警察发现，他们来不及调转车头，只好倒车逃跑。在车水马龙的大街上，倒着开的小汽车居然跑赢了迎头追上来的警车。
3.最搞笑的急智
银行行长冒充卡车司机，差点被警察识破。警察看到司机手腕上的劳力士金表，很是纳闷。行长颇有急智，趁机向警察兜售：“冒牌货！你想要？给你，35块……不行？那30块？”不耐烦的警察放走了卡车。
4.最骇人听闻的
雷·提彬对着《最后的晚餐》侃侃而谈：圣杯其实是一个女人，而这个女人正是耶稣的妻子……这个场面很平静，但雷·提彬的主张，实在让人脑袋“嗡嗡嗡”。
5.最亦真亦幻的
兰登和索菲向牛顿墓地走去。牛顿生活时代的伦敦街景与现代的伦敦街景在银幕上重迭起来，前者是粗颗粒、高反差的画面，后者是正常色彩还原的画面，一时间让人产生不知“今夕何夕”的超现实感。
6.最激动人心的
影片最后，兰登刮胡子受伤，受到水池里血线的启发，想到抹大拉遗骸的藏身之地。他来到卢浮宫，地下静静躺??待，剑刃和圣杯一起看护着她的门外，她躺在大师们令人钟爱的杰作的怀抱中，在繁星闪烁的天空下终于得到了安息。”随着镜头，谜语被完美破解。
《达芬奇密码》-改编亮点
1.克服恐惧
兰登因为7岁的时候掉进井中，因此对密闭的环境非常紧张，不时表现出恐惧的感觉。片中也着力表现，除了一开始他与法希进入卢浮宫坐电梯是原书已有情节外，另增加了一个细节：他和索菲从苏黎世存托银行出来，为避警方追捕，进入装甲运钞车这样一个密闭的空间，躲在车厢内紧张得发抖。索菲用小时候妈妈安抚她的方法—————把双手搓热了，捂在兰登的两边太阳穴上，同时柔声安慰鼓励。
2.密码筒
原着中的密码筒有两个，第一个打开是一个更小的密码筒。片中只出现一个密码筒，就是原着中的第二个密码筒及提示语句，避免了情节的重复。
3.法希身份
原着法希是一个好大喜功的警察，而在片中，他成为事工会的教徒。事工会的主教阿润沙（原着译为阿林加洛沙）告诉法希，他听到罗伯特·兰登的忏悔，正是兰登杀了卢浮宫博物馆馆长雅克·索尼埃，因此，法希将兰登锁定为凶手，并且将案情进展随时报告给阿润沙。但是最后关头，他看出了破绽，发现阿润沙编造了谎言，因而不再怀疑兰登。
4.圣杯秘密
圣杯的秘密为何不向世人公开，这是改编的最大亮点。原着中，索菲与奶奶、弟弟相认，得知郇山隐修会根本不打算向世人揭开圣杯的秘密，于是决定放弃向世人揭示这一足以摧毁基督教权威的秘密，致使影片一开始郇山隐修会的4名守护者宁死不说出圣杯的秘密显得多余，全书不免有虎头蛇尾之感。而在片中，兰登与索菲在罗斯林教堂没有找到抹大拉玛利亚的石棺，误以为已经被索尼埃毁掉，而索菲要证明自己实为耶稣的后代缺少DNA实证。正灰心之际，兰登突然发现卢浮宫玻璃金字塔的设计暗合圣杯存放地的提示语，接着镜头转入卢浮宫玻璃金字塔底下，正是抹大拉玛利亚的石棺，影片在这里结束。这样的结局，使得全片前后呼应，更能自圆其说。
《达芬奇密码》-新片快评
惊悚悬疑不输原著
电影《达·芬奇密码》的紧张惊悚气氛、环环相扣故事、高潮迭起情节，丝毫不比原着逊色。
导演为了制造紧张惊悚，大量运用诡秘阴沉的背景音乐。此外，大量血淋淋的镜头吓得观众连
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
连发出惊呼。片中多次出现白化杀手塞拉斯对自己的肉体进行惩罚的特写镜头。塞拉斯脱去外衣，露出健美的裸体，细看上去伤痕累累。接着他取下带钉的苦修带，使劲勒上铁链，痛得浑身颤抖。塞拉斯在圣叙尔皮斯教堂行凶处理得相当好。先是修女桑德琳接到电话，半夜安排塞拉斯参观教堂，突然窗户被阴风猛地关上，暗示不祥。全片多次用闪回表现塞拉斯杀害不同人物，使人一看到他就联想起残暴、血腥。环环相扣的解谜过程与步步紧逼的追杀情节紧密交织，相当刺激。索菲和兰登自进入卢浮宫博物馆起开始解谜，用字母换位法找到达·芬奇《蒙娜丽莎》，继而找到《岩间圣母》，发现索尼埃留下的钥匙，与警卫打斗；在出逃途中，索菲又展示了一把车技，倒着开“都市精灵”，冲过车流和人群……基本上每转换一个场景就出现一个高潮。不过影片也有小小的遗憾：背景知识太多，在两个半小时内，将之全盘灌输给观众，使得台词多而密集，一派喋喋不休的架式，与整片惊悚悬疑的气氛不太融合。
《达芬奇密码》-首映
根据丹·布朗畅销小说改编的同名电影《达·芬奇密码》即将于本月19号在全球上映。但是，和该小说之前遭遇的官司危机一样，这部影片还没上映，就已经在众多国家遭到了不同程度的抵制。
印度大约2000名天主教徒前天在孟买举行抗议集会，认为该片有关情节亵渎了天主教。由于抗议不断，该片在印度的首映已被推迟。在英国，影片遇到了分级争议。英国电影分类局专家认为，这部电影用于增加紧张气氛的配乐会让儿童感到恐怖。如不进行重大修改，只能获得受限制的 15级许可。而在新加坡，这部电影也被列为"成人题材"的NC-16级电影。
5月17日晚美国影片《达-芬奇密码》在北京亮相。由于时差原因，《达-芬奇密码》在中国首映的时间实际上比戛纳还要早六七个小时，从而成为此片在世界范围内的最早亮相。众多明星均捧场出席了该首映礼，因在北京拍摄影片《满城尽带黄金甲》的周润发也携夫人陈荟莲出席。
《达-芬奇密码》的首映典礼在东方新世纪影城所在的君悦酒店宴会大厅举行。入场嘉宾在进场前可在一个特制的暗箱中扮作 “蒙娜丽莎”进行拍照。20位通过网络游戏在全国范围海选产生的特殊嘉宾在首映式上登场，在几位明星来宾的评判下，他们一起通过一系列密码破译游戏展开了激烈角逐，最终产生了4位分数最高的幸运儿。他们将代表中国的“密码迷”们与其它国家的游戏优胜者一起参加精彩纷呈的“达芬奇欧洲之旅”。
《达芬奇密码》-波折经历
世界天主教会教皇本笃十六世的副手号召起了信众，各宗教团体开始了公开指责地址，白化病患者为自己的形象再次被典型化愤怒，涉及的旅游地点格外蓬
《达芬奇密码》《达芬奇密码》
勃，钻研起密码学的人持续增多，游戏开发纳入进程，宗教热潮空前高涨，有事没事的闲人们也准备起了长期的激烈争论……谎言？真相？阴谋论？蒙娜丽莎神秘的微笑再次成为了茶余饭后的谈资。
不过一部虚构小说，怎么就能引得西方社会各界人士肉搏？是它蝉联美国畅销书排行榜117周，全球销量超过4000万本，成为美国今年最受欢迎的小说的事实？还是因为丹·布朗在《达芬奇密码》里讲的故事，完全是和西方人的宗教支柱唱对台戏？争论从来没有答案，我们只知道，不管是多少的抗议，多么沸沸嚷嚷的涉嫌侵权案，那个小说里承载了千古复杂秘密的达芬奇密码，受关注的程度还是一直升温！
对于虎视眈眈的好莱坞来说，这样不缺谈资的题材绝对是电影票房的根基，争议越大关注越多票房越高，改编剧本只是早晚而已。更何况，卢浮宫、达· 芬奇、圣经、宗教、密码学、符号学、惊悚、悬疑和让人心惊胆颤解密追踪，《达芬奇密码》从一开始就明显具备银幕发光元素。震荡了世界书市的超级畅销小说即将面世，还有什么比这更值得宣传呢？！
The title of the novel refers to, among other things, the fact that the murder victim is found in the Denon Wing of the Louvre, naked and posed like Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawing, the Vitruvian Man, with a cryptic message written beside his body and a pentacle drawn on his stomach in his own blood.
The novel has provoked a popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail legend and Magdalene's role in the history of Christianity. The book has been extensively denounced by many Christian denominations as an attack on the Roman Catholic Church. It has also been criticized for its historical and scientific inaccuracy.
The book is a worldwide bestseller that sold 80 million copies as of 2009[update] and has been translated into 44 languages. This makes it, as of 2010, the best selling English language novel of the 21st century and the 2nd biggest selling novel of the 21st century in any language. Combining the detective, thriller, and conspiracy fiction genres, it is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon, the first being his 2000 novel Angels & Demons. In November 2004, Random House published a Special Illustrated Edition with 160 illustrations. In 2006, a film adaptation was released by Sony's Columbia Pictures.
This book describes the attempts of Robert Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University, to solve the murder of renowned curator Jacques Saunière of the Louvre Museum in Paris. A baffling cipher is found near his body. Saunière's granddaughter, Sophie Neveu and Langdon attempt to sort out the bizarre riddles and are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci.
The unraveling of the mystery requires solutions to a series of brain-teasers, including anagrams and number puzzles. The ultimate solution is found to be intimately connected with the possible location of the Holy Grail and to a mysterious society called the Priory of Sion, as well as to the Knights Templar. The story also involves the Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei.
Details
The story starts off with the murder of Jacques Saunière (the Grand Master Of Priory of Sion, although virtually no one knows that at the time) by Silas (acting on behalf of someone known only as The Teacher) to extract the location of the "keystone", an item that leads to the Holy Grail. The police summon Robert Langdon, who is delivering a lecture in Paris, to the murder scene and ask for his help in deciphering the code Sauniere left on and near his body. Bezu Fache, the Captain of the Central Directorate Judicial Police, believes Langdon is the prime suspect in the murder.
Sophie Neveu shows up at the murder scene as a police cryptographer and quickly gains Langdon's trust. Jacques Saunière was Neveu's grandfather and they were very close to each other until she discovered him participating in a pagan sex ritual (Hieros Gamos) at his home in Normandy, when she made a surprise visit there during a break from boarding school. (That she had observed something is mentioned and hinted at several times throughout the story, but what it is that she saw is revealed to no one, including the reader, until near the end when she tells Robert).
Langdon and Neveu find a baffling cipher near Saunière's body. These clues were meant to lead to a second set of clues. By deciphering her grandfather's clues, Neveu finds the painting, which has a key hidden behind it with an address and symbols of the Priory of Sion were written on it. Working together, Langdon and Neveu trick the police, flee the scene and figure out the secret of the key.
The key opens a safe deposit box at the Paris branch of the Depository Bank of Zurich. Saunière's account number at the bank is a 10-digit number listing the digits of the first eight Fibonacci numbers: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21.
Inside the safe deposit box they find the keystone which is actually a large cryptex, a cylindrical device supposedly invented by Leonardo Da Vinci for transporting secure messages. To open it the combination of rotating components must be arranged in the correct order. If the cryptex is forced open an enclosed vial of vinegar ruptures and dissolves the message, which was written on papyrus. The rosewood box containing the large cryptex contains clues to the combination of the cryptex, written in backwards script in the same manner as Leonardo's journals.
The instructions that Saunière revealed to Silas at gunpoint are actually a well-rehearsed lie, namely that the keystone is buried in the Church of Saint-Sulpice beneath an obelisk that lies exactly along the ancient "Rose Line" (the former Prime Meridian which passed through Paris before it was redesignated to pass through Greenwich). The message beneath the obelisk simply contains a reference to a passage in the Book of Job (38:11a) which reads in part "Hitherto shalt thou go and no further."(KJV) When Silas reads this, he realizes he has been tricked.
Still being chased by the police, Langdon and Neveu take the keystone to Sir Leigh Teabing (an expert in the Holy Grail and Langdon's friend). They flee the country in Teabing's private plane, and on the plane figure out how to open the cryptex, but the large cryptex actually contains a second smaller cryptex with a second riddle that reveals its combination. The riddle, which says to seek the orb that should be on the tomb of "a knight a pope interred," refers not to a medieval knight, but rather to the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton, who was buried in Westminster Abbey, and was eulogized by Alexander Pope (A. Pope).
It turns out that Teabing is the Teacher who assigned Silas to kill Jacques Saunière and he also had information on the identities of the leaders of the Priory of Sion who then bugged their offices and had Silas assassinate them. Rémy is his collaborator. It is Teabing who contacted Bishop Aringarosa, hiding his identity, and tricked him into financing the plan to find the Grail. He never intended to hand the Grail over to Aringarosa but is taking advantage of Opus Dei's resolve to find it. Teabing believes that the Priory of Sion has broken its vow to reveal the secret of the Grail to the world at the appointed time. He plans to steal the Grail documents and reveal them to the world himself, ruining the church, which he blames for the event. It was he who informed Silas that Langdon and Sophie Neveu were at his chateau. He did not seize the keystone from them himself because he did not want to reveal his identity. He summoned Silas to seize the keystone in his house, but himself thwarted Silas, in order to gain Langdon and Sophie's further help with decoding the cryptex. Subsequently, the police raid the house, having followed the tracking device in the truck Langdon had stolen while escaping from the bank. Teabing led Neveu and Langdon to the Temple Church in London, knowing full well that it was a dead end, in order to stage the hostage scene with Rémy and thereby obtain the keystone without revealing his real plot to Langdon and Neveu.
To erase all knowledge of his work, Teabing kills Rémy by giving him cognac laced with peanut powder, knowing Rémy has a deadly allergy to peanuts. Thus, Rémy dies of an anaphylactic shock. Teabing also anonymously tells the police that Silas is hiding in the London headquarters of Opus Dei.
In a showdown with Teabing in Westminster Abbey, Langdon secretly opens the second cryptex and removes its contents before destroying it in front of Teabing. Teabing is arrested and led away while fruitlessly begging Langdon to tell him the contents of the second cryptex and the secret location of the Grail.
Bezu Fache finds out that Neveu and Langdon are innocent after Bishop Aringarosa contacts him privately to confess. Fache then cancels the warrants for the arrest of Neveu and Langdon.
Silas accidentally shoots Aringarosa outside the London headquarters of Opus Dei while fleeing from the police. Realizing his terrible error and that he has been duped, Aringarosa tells Bezu Fache to give the bearer bonds in his briefcase to the families of the murdered leaders of the Priory of Sion. Silas dies from his fatal wounds.
The final message inside the second keystone actually does not refer to Rosslyn Chapel, although the Grail was indeed once buried there, below the Star of David on the floor (the two interlocking triangles are the "blade" and "chalice," i.e., male and female symbols).
The docent in Rosslyn Chapel is Sophie's long-lost brother. Sophie had been told as a child that he was killed with her parents and grandmother in a car accident.
The guardian of Rosslyn Chapel, Marie Chauvel, is Sophie's long-lost grandmother, and the wife of Jacques Saunière. She is the woman who participated in the sex ritual with Jacques Saunière. It is revealed that Sophie is a descendant of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. The Priory of Sion hid her identity to protect her from possible threats to her life.
Even though all four of the leaders of the Priory of Sion are killed, the secret is not lost, since there is still a contingency plan (never revealed) that will keep the organization and its secret alive.
The real meaning of the last message is that the Grail is buried beneath the small pyramid (i.e., the "blade," a male symbol) directly below the inverted glass pyramid of the Louvre (i.e., the "chalice," a female symbol, which Langdon and Sophie ironically almost crashed into while making their original escape from Bezu Fache). It also lies beneath the "Rose Line," which is similar to "Rosslyn." Langdon figures out this final piece to the puzzle in the last pages of the book, but he does not appear inclined to tell anyone about this. See La Pyramide Inversée for further discussion.
Characters
These are the principal characters that drive the plot. Some have names that are puns, anagrams or hidden clues:
* Robert Langdon
* Jacques Saunière
* Sophie Neveu
* Bezu Fache
* Silas
* Manuel Aringarosa
* André Vernet
* Leigh Teabing
* Rémy Legaludec
* Jérôme Collet
* Marie Chauvel Saint-Clair
* Pamela Gettum
Secret of the Holy Grail
Detail of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci
In the novel Leigh Teabing explains to Sophie Neveu that the figure at the right hand of Jesus in Leonardo da Vinci's painting of "The Last Supper" is not the apostle John, but actually Mary Magdalene. In the novel, Magdalene was the wife of Jesus Christ and was pregnant with his child when Jesus was crucified. Leigh Teabing says that the absence of a chalice in Leonardo's painting means Leonardo knew that Mary Magdalene was the actual Holy Grail and the bearer of Jesus' blood in the form of the child she was carrying. Leigh Teabing goes on to explain that this idea is supported by the shape of the letter "V" that is formed by the bodily positions of Jesus and Mary, as "V" is the symbol for the sacred feminine. The absence of the Apostle John in the painting is explained by knowing that John is also referred to as "the Disciple Jesus loved", code for Mary Magdalene. The book also notes that the color scheme of their garments are inverted: Jesus wears a red blouse with royal blue cape; John/Mary wears a royal blue blouse with red cape — perhaps symbolizing two bonded halves of marriage.
According to the novel, the secrets of the Holy Grail, as kept by the Priory of Sion are as follows:
* The Holy Grail is not a physical chalice, but a woman, namely Mary Magdalene, who carried the bloodline of Christ.
* The Old French expression for the Holy Grail, San gréal, actually is a play on Sang réal, which literally means "royal blood" in Old French.
* The Grail relics consist of the documents that testify to the bloodline, as well as the actual bones of Mary Magdalene.
* The Grail relics of Mary Magdalene were hidden by the Priory of Sion in a secret crypt, perhaps beneath Rosslyn Chapel.
* The Church has suppressed the truth about Mary Magdalene and the Jesus bloodline for 2000 years. This is principally because they fear the power of the sacred feminine in and of itself and because this would challenge the primacy of Saint Peter as an apostle. More than that, it would prove that Jesus was human, and therefore not divine.
* Mary Magdalene was of royal descent (through the Jewish House of Benjamin) and was the wife of Jesus, of the House of David. That she was a prostitute was slander invented by the Church to obscure their true relationship. At the time of the Crucifixion, she was pregnant. After the Crucifixion, she fled to Gaul, where she was sheltered by the Jews of Marseille. She gave birth to a daughter, named Sarah. The bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene became the Merovingian dynasty of France.
* The existence of the bloodline was the secret that was contained in the documents discovered by the Crusaders after they conquered Jerusalem in 1099 (see Kingdom of Jerusalem). The Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar were organized to keep the secret.
The secrets of the Grail are connected, according to the novel, to Leonardo Da Vinci's work as follows:
* Leonardo was a member of the Priory of Sion and knew the secret of the Grail. The secret is in fact revealed in The Last Supper, in which no actual chalice is present at the table. The figure seated next to Christ is not a man, but a woman, his wife Mary Magdalene. Most reproductions of the work are from a later alteration that obscured her obvious female characteristics.
* The androgyny of the Mona Lisa reflects the sacred union of male and female implied in the holy union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Such parity between the cosmic forces of masculine and feminine has long been a deep threat to the established power of the Church. The name Mona Lisa is actually an anagram for "Amon L'Isa", referring to the father and mother gods of Ancient Egyptian religion (namely Amun and Isis).
A number of different authors also speculate about the possibility of Jesus becoming a father. There are at least three children attributed to him, a daughter Tamar, born before the Crucifixion, and two sons Jesus (the Jesus Justus from the New Testament) and Josephes, both born after the Resurrection. Although their names are now part of the common culture of conspiracy writers, only two decades ago, when The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was written, the names were not mentioned. The royal descents that lie at the heart of The Da Vinci Code mystery centre on the family of Josephes, who is supposed to be the grandfather of Aminadab del Graal, first of the "Fisher Kings". However the genealogies that are quoted in Grail lore appear to record too few generations, with children regularly being born to fathers in their 40s.
Reception
Brown's novel was a major success in 2004 and was outsold only by J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It won Book Sense's 2004 Book of the Year Award in the Adult Fiction category. It spawned a number of offspring works and drew positive reviews from The New York Times, People,[citation needed] and The Washington Post.[citation needed] Additionally, The Da Vinci Code has inspired a number of novels very similar to it, including Raymond Khoury's The Last Templar and Steve Berry's The Templar Legacy.[citation needed] In a 2008 survey of more than 15,000 Australian readers, the book came in fourth in a list of the 101 best books ever written.
The book was not generally well received by critics, however, and it has been the subject of numerous negative appraisals concerning its literary value and its portrayal of history. Its writing and historical accuracy were reviewed scathingly by The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Salon.com, among others.
Criticism
Main article: Inaccuracies in The Da Vinci Code
Historical inaccuracies
The book generated criticism when it was first published, due to its inaccurate description of core aspects of Christianity, the history of the Catholic Church, and descriptions of European art, history, and architecture. The book has received mostly negative reviews from Catholic and other Christian communities.
Many critics say that Brown should have done much more research before publishing this book. On February 22, 2004, an article titled "The Last Word: The Da Vinci Con" appeared in the New York Times by writer Laura Miller. Miller attacks the Da Vinci Code on multiple levels, referring to it as "based on a notorious hoax", "rank nonsense", and "bogus." She points out how heavily the book is based on the fabrications of Pierre Plantard (the Priory of Sion did not exist until Plantard created it) who in 1953 was arrested and convicted of fraud.
Critics accuse Brown of distorting and fabricating history. For example, Marcia Ford wrote:
Regardless of whether you agree with Brown's conclusions, it's clear that his history is largely fanciful, which means he and his publisher have violated a long-held if unspoken agreement with the reader: Fiction that purports to present historical facts should be researched as carefully as a nonfiction book would be.
Richard Abanes wrote:
The most flagrant aspect … is not that Dan Brown disagrees with Christianity but that he utterly warps it in order to disagree with it … to the point of completely rewriting a vast number of historical events. And making the matter worse has been Brown's willingness to pass off his distortions as ‘facts' with which innumerable scholars and historians agree.
The book opens with the claim by Dan Brown that "The Priory of Sion — a European secret society founded in 1099 — is a real organization". The Priory of Sion itself was actually a hoax created in 1956 by a Mr. Pierre Plantard. The author also claims that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents … and secret rituals in this novel are accurate"; but this claim is disputed by almost all academic scholars in the fields the book discusses.
Numerous works have been published that explain in detail why any claim to accuracy is difficult to substantiate, while two lawsuits have been brought alleging plagiarism in The Da Vinci Code. The first suit for copyright infringement was filed in February 2006 in a British court by the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, a purportedly nonfiction account of Mary Magdalene's role as the wife of Jesus of Nazareth and the mother of his child, was found in Dan Brown's favor. No verdict has yet been rendered on a second suit, filed in August of the same year, in the United States by Jack Dunn, the author of The Vatican Boys.
A third author, Lewis Perdue, alleged that Brown plagiarized from two of his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy, originally published in 1983, and Daughter of God, originally published in the year 2000. He sought to block distribution of the book and film. However, Judge George Daniels of the US District Court in New York ruled against Perdue in 2005, saying that "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God" and that "Any slightly similar elements are on the level of generalised or otherwise unprotectable ideas." Perdue appealed, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the original decision, saying Mr. Perdue's arguments were "without merit".
Dan Brown himself dilutes the suggestion of some of the more controversial aspects being fact on his web site: "The "FACT" page makes no statement whatsoever about any of the ancient theories discussed by fictional characters. Interpreting those ideas is left to the reader". However, it also says that "these real elements are interpreted and debated by fictional characters", "it is my belief that some of the theories discussed by these characters may have merit." and "the secret behind The Da Vinci Code was too well documented and significant for me to dismiss." Brown's ambiguity on the matter continues to fuel debate over the factual content of the novel.
Brown's earlier statements about the accuracy of the historical information in his book, however, were far more strident. In 2003, while promoting his novel, he was asked in interviews what parts of the history in his novel actually happened. He replied "Absolutely all of it." In a 2003 interview with CNN's Martin Savidge he was again asked how much of the historical background was true. He replied, "99% is true ... the background is all true". Asked by Elizabeth Vargas in an ABC News special if the book would have been different if he had written it as non-fiction he replied, "I don't think it would have." More recently Brown has avoided interviews and has been rather more circumspect about the accuracy of his claims in his few public statements. He has also, however, never retracted any of his earlier assertions that the history in the novel is accurate, despite substantial academic criticism of his claims.
In 2005, UK TV personality Tony Robinson edited and narrated a detailed rebuttal of the main arguments of Dan Brown and those of Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, "The Real Da Vinci Code", shown on British TV Channel 4. The program featured lengthy interviews with many of the main protagonists cited by Brown as "absolute fact" in The Da Vinci Code. Arnaud de Sède, son of Gérard de Sède, stated categorically that his father and Plantard had made up the existence of the Prieuré de Sion, the cornerstone of the Jesus bloodline theory - to quote Arnaud de Sede in the program, "frankly, it was piffle". The program also cast severe doubt on the Rosslyn Chapel association with the Grail and on other related stories like the alleged landing of Mary Magdalene in France.
Portrayal of early Christianity
According to The Da Vinci Code, the Roman Emperor Constantine I suppressed Gnosticism because it portrayed Jesus as purely human. The novel's argument is as follows. Constantine wanted Christianity to act as a unifying religion for the Roman Empire. He thought Christianity would appeal to pagans only if it featured a demigod similar to pagan heroes. According to the Gnostic Gospels, Jesus was merely a human prophet, not a demigod. Therefore, to change Jesus' image, Constantine destroyed the Gnostic Gospels and promoted the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which portray Jesus as divine or semidivine.
In fact, Gnosticism did not portray Jesus as merely human. Some Gnostic writings do depict Jesus interacting with his disciples in a wholly human way, one example being the Gospel of Mary,[citation needed] but the general Gnostic depiction of Jesus is not clear-cut. Many Gnostic writings depict Christ as purely divine, his human body being a mere illusion (see Docetism). Some Gnostic sects saw Christ this way because they regarded matter as evil, and therefore believed that a divine spirit would never have taken on a material body. The Da Vinci Code also portrays the Council of Nicaea's decision to recognize the fully human and divine aspects of Christ as being a close vote, while some authors dispute this.
Literary criticism
The novel has also attracted criticism in literary circles for its alleged lack of artistic or literary merit and its allegedly stereotyped portrayal of British and French characters.
Salman Rushdie claimed during a lecture, "Do not start me on 'The Da Vinci Code,' A novel so bad that it gives bad novels a bad name."
Stephen Fry has referred to Brown's writings as "complete loose stool-water" and "arse gravy of the worst kind." In a live chat on June 14, 2006, he clarified, "I just loathe all those book[s] about the Holy Grail and Masons and Catholic conspiracies and all that botty-dribble. I mean, there's so much more that's interesting and exciting in art and in history. It plays to the worst and laziest in humanity, the desire to think the worst of the past and the desire to feel superior to it in some fatuous way."
In his 2005 University of Maine Commencement Address, best-selling author Stephen King put Dan Brown's work and "Jokes for the John" on the same level, calling such literature the "intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese." The New York Times, while reviewing the movie based on the book, called the book "Dan Brown's best-selling primer on how not to write an English sentence". The New Yorker reviewer Anthony Lane refers to it as "unmitigated junk" and decries "the crumbling coarseness of the style." Linguist Geoffrey Pullum and others posted several entries critical of Dan Brown's writing, at Language Log, calling Brown one of the "worst prose stylists in the history of literature" and saying Brown's "writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad." Roger Ebert described it as a "potboiler written with little grace and style," although he did say it did "supply an intriguing plot." In his review of the film National Treasure, he wrote: "I should read a potboiler like The Da Vinci Code every once in a while, just to remind myself that life is too short to read books like The Da Vinci Code."
Parodies
2005
The book was parodied by Adam Roberts with The Va Dinci Cod, and by Toby Clements with The Asti Spumante Code.
A telemovie spin-off of the Australian television series Kath & Kim parodied the film version as Da Kath and Kim Code in late 2005.
2006
The BBC program Dead Ringers parodied the Da Vinci Code, calling it the Da Rolf Harris Code.
Popular South African political cartoonist Zapiro published a book collection of his strips entitled Da Zuma Code, which parodies the former deputy president Jacob Zuma.
2007
The book was parodied in the South Park episode "Fantastic Easter Special" and Robert Rankin's novel The Da-da-de-da-da Code.
The characters Lucy and Silas are parodied in the film Epic Movie. The movie starts with a scene similar to the opening of The Da Vinci Code, with Silas chasing the orphan Lucy, a parody of Sophie Neveu, in a museum. Throughout the movie, Silas speaks in Latin. However, the translations for his speech are intentionally false for the sake of parody (e.g. Silas says "Et tu, Brute?" to Aslo, when the film translates it as "I'm Rick James, bitch!").
Szyfr Jana Matejki (Jan Matejko's Cipher) is a Polish parody by Dariusz Rekosz. Sequel Ko(s)miczna futryna: Szyfr Jana Matejki II (Co[s]mic Door-frame: Jan Matejko's Cipher II) was released in 2008. Main character is inspector Józef Świenty who tries to solve The Greatest Secret of Mankind (Największa Tajemnica Ludzkości) - parentage of Piast dynasty.
The book was parodied in the American Dad episode "Black Mystery Month". But instead Stan searches for the controversial truth that Mary Todd Lincoln created peanut butter, not George Washington Carver.
2008
In 2008, it was parodied in the second series of That Mitchell and Webb Look as "The Numberwang Code", a trailer for a fictional film based on a recurring sketch on the show.
Also in March 2008, the Irish blogger Twenty Major, parodied elements in his first book The Order of the Phoenix Park.
Inspiration and influences
The novel is part of the exploration of alternative religious history. Its principal source book is listed as per the court case, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince's The Templar Revelation, as well as the books by Margaret Starbird. An earlier novel had already used the theme of a Jesus bloodline: The Dreamer of the Vine, by Liz Greene, published in 1980 (Richard Leigh's sister and Michael Baigent's girlfriend at that time). The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (which is explicitly named, among several others, at the beginning of chapter 60), was stated by Dan Brown not to be amongst his primary research material for the book.
Having paid acknowledgement to the above books as sources of inspiration, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code contains the overriding salient point in its plot: that the Merovingian kings of France were descendants from the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
In reference to Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent (two of the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail), Brown named the principal Grail expert of his story "Leigh Teabing" (an anagram of "Baigent Leigh"). Brown confirmed this during the court case. In reply to the suggestion that Lincoln was also referenced, as he has medical problems resulting in a severe limp, like the character of Leigh Teabing, Brown stated he was unaware of Lincoln's illness and the correspondence was a coincidence. After losing before the High Court in July 12, 2006, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh appealed, unsuccessfully, to the Court of Appeal.
Following the trial, it was found that the publicity had actually significantly boosted UK sales of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
There are also some striking similarities to 1996 video game Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars.
Release details
The book has been translated into over 40 languages, primarily in hardcover. Alternate formats include audio cassette, CD, and e-book. Most recently, a Trade Paperback edition was released March 2006 in conjunction with the film.
Major English-language (hardcover) editions include:
* (US) The Da Vinci Code, April 2003 (First edition), Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-50420-9.
* The Da Vinci Code, Special Illustrated Edition, November 2, 2004, Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-51375-5 (as of January 2006, has sold 576,000 copies).
* (UK) The Da Vinci Code, April 2004, Corgi Adult. ISBN 0-552-14951-9.
* (UK) The Da Vinci Code: The Illustrated Edition, October 2, 2004, Bantam Press. ISBN 0-593-05425-3.
* (US/Canada) The Da Vinci Code (Trade Paperback edition), March 2006, Anchor Books.
* On March 28, 2006, Anchor Books released 5 million paperback copies of the book, and Broadway Books released 200,000 paperback copies of The Da Vinci Code Special Illustrated Edition.
* On May 19, the day of the film's release, Doubleday and Broadway Books released The Da Vinci Code Illustrated Screenplay: Behind the Scenes of the Major Motion Picture, by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, with the introductions by Ron Howard and Dan Brown. It included film stills, behind-the-scenes photos and the full script. There were 25,000 copies of the hardcover, and 200,000 of the paperback version.
Puzzles
Book jacket
Part of the advertising campaign for the novel was that the artwork in the American version of the bookjacket held various codes, and that the reader who solved them via the author's website would be given a prize. Several thousand people actually solved the codes, and one name was randomly chosen to be the winner, with the name announced on live television, Good Morning America, in early 2004. The prize was a trip to Paris.
The five hidden puzzles reveal:
* That the back of the book jacket conceals latitude and longitude coordinates, written in reverse, light red on dark red. Adding one degree to the latitude gives the coordinates of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Northern Virginia, which is the location of a mysterious sculpture called Kryptos. The coordinates were taken from part of the decrypted text of part 2 of the sculpture (part 4 has never been solved). When Brown has been asked why the coordinates are one degree off, his reply has been, "The discrepancy is intentional".
* Bold letters are present on the book jacket. There is a secret message hidden in the text of the book flaps. The message: Is there no help for the widow's son (a reference to Freemasonry).
* The words "only WW knows" can be seen on the back cover. It is a phrase printed invertedly, in the torn part of the book cover. This too is a reference to part 2 of the Kryptos sculpture.
* A circle with numbers, between the Doubleday logo and the barcode, reveals a secret message. These are the chapter numbers where the initial letters are arranged in Caesar box format, revealing the code "E Pluribus Unum".
* There is reverse writing on the cover of the book, which is the riddle for the first cryptex.
Brown, both via his website and in person, has stated that the puzzles in the bookjacket give hints about the subject of his next novel, The Lost Symbol. This repeats a theme from his earlier novels. For example, Deception Point had an encrypted message that, when solved, said, "The Da Vinci Code will surface".
In the simplified Chinese version of The Da Vinci Code, the cover has a secret text; however, this text can be easily seen. It reads: "13-3-2-1-1-8-5 O, Draconian devil! Oh, Lame Saint! P.S. Find Robert Langdon." This is the multiply encrypted clue written in invisible ink next to the dead body in the museum, which kicks off the plot of the entire novel.
Pages
All of the puzzles listed below can be found within the page headers in the Mass Market US Paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code.
* Page 60: "Ankh Fendile" (anagram of "knife handle") in place of "Dan Brown"
* Page 95: "De Lancs" (anagram of "candles") in place of "Da Vinci"
* Page 138: "Das Brilli" (anagram of "billiards") in place of "Dan Brown"
* Page 141: "La Sufrete" (anagram of "true/false") in place of "Da Vinci"
* Page 155: "sos" in place of page number
* Page 192: "Reon Tigaldo" (anagram of "Golden Ratio") in place of "Dan Brown"
* Page 217: "De Ysosy" (anagram of "odyssey") in place of "Da Vinci"
* Page 262: "Mer Reve" (anagram of "Vermeer") in place of "Dan Brown"
* Page 322: page number replaced by three asterisks
Also in the body text on page 138, the word "numbers" in the sentence "Tearing it open, she found four Paris phone numbers" is printed in a bold medieval typeface, instead of the typical serif typeface used throughout the rest of the book.
Film
Columbia Pictures adapted the novel to film, with a screenplay written by Akiva Goldsman, and Academy Award winner Ron Howard directing. The film was released on May 19, 2006, and stars Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu, and Sir Ian McKellen as Leigh Teabing. The film had an opening weekend gross of $77,073,388 and grossed $217,536,138 in 2006, making it the fifth highest grossing movie of 2006. The film did very well overseas, grossing over $758,239,852 worldwide. On November 14, 2006 the movie was released on DVD.
丹·布朗/著
丹·布朗的处女作——《数字城堡》是一部高科技惊险小说，《数字城堡》探讨了公民隐私与国家安全之间的矛盾。当年出版后旋即成为美国畅销电子书第一名，长达15周之久。“信息时代的恐怖主义”是该书的一个主题。
在信息时代，各国间谍、恐怖分子开始通过互联网传递情报，但是为了使电子邮件不被他人截获，他们纷纷给自己的邮件加上了密码。为了从网络上获得重要情报，世界上最为隐秘的情报部门——美国国家安全局(NSA)斥巨资建造了一台可以破解密码的机器——万能解密机。这台超级电脑可以在极短的时间内迅速破解任何密码，因而帮助NSA挫败了无数恐怖分子的阴谋，避免了战争的爆发。尽管建造这个庞然大物的初衷是监视和破译间谍和恐怖分子的电子邮件，但它同样也能截获所有普通人的私人电子邮件。这个世界已没有隐私和秘密可言！出于对这种公然侵犯人类隐私的行为的不满，国家安全局前程序设计师远诚友加推出了“数字城堡”，公开声称它是具有不可破解密码的加密软件，这个为“谁来监视这些监视者”而忧心的日本人向美国国家安全局发起了挑战。远诚友加要求国家安全局向世人宣布万能解密机的存在，否则他就采取特别行动。不幸的是，远诚友加在西班牙意外死亡，而刻有口令的戒指却神秘失踪了。大学教授、语言学家戴维·贝克不经意中卷入到国安局的特殊工作中，遭到一个神秘杀手的追杀，两人斗智斗勇，玩起了猫捉老鼠的游戏，足迹遍及塞维利亚的大街小巷。国安局的首席密码破解专家苏珊·弗莱切是贝克的未婚妻，就在贝克被派去西班牙的时候，苏珊被紧急召回总部。她的上司国安局副局长斯特拉思莫尔告诉苏珊一个惊人的消息：
战无不胜的超级电脑万能解密机遇上了不可破解的密码——数字城堡。斯特拉思莫尔让苏珊查出远诚友加同伙的真实身份。随后，苏珊目睹了一个又一个令人震惊的秘密、谎言和背叛，她发现自己不仅是在为她的国家而战，而且是为了她的生命和她所爱的人而战……
数字城堡全文阅读
译者序
楔子
第一章
第二章
第三章
第四章
第五章
第六章
第七章
第八章
第九章
第十章
第十一章
第十二章
第十三章
第十四章
第十五章
第十六章
第十七章
第十八章
第十九章
第二十章
第二十一章
第二十二章
第二十三章
第二十四章
第二十五章
第二十六章
第二十七章
第二十八章
第二十九章
第三十章
第三十一章
第三十二章
第三十三章
第三十四章
第三十五章
第三十六章
第三十七章
第三十八章
第三十九章
第四十章
第四十一章
第四十二章
第四十三章
第四十四章
第四十五章
第四十六章
第四十七章
（完）
丹·布朗的处女作——《数字城堡》是一部高科技惊险小说，《数字城堡》探讨了公民隐私与国家安全之间的矛盾。当年出版后旋即成为美国畅销电子书第一名，长达15周之久。“信息时代的恐怖主义”是该书的一个主题。
在信息时代，各国间谍、恐怖分子开始通过互联网传递情报，但是为了使电子邮件不被他人截获，他们纷纷给自己的邮件加上了密码。为了从网络上获得重要情报，世界上最为隐秘的情报部门——美国国家安全局(NSA)斥巨资建造了一台可以破解密码的机器——万能解密机。这台超级电脑可以在极短的时间内迅速破解任何密码，因而帮助NSA挫败了无数恐怖分子的阴谋，避免了战争的爆发。尽管建造这个庞然大物的初衷是监视和破译间谍和恐怖分子的电子邮件，但它同样也能截获所有普通人的私人电子邮件。这个世界已没有隐私和秘密可言！出于对这种公然侵犯人类隐私的行为的不满，国家安全局前程序设计师远诚友加推出了“数字城堡”，公开声称它是具有不可破解密码的加密软件，这个为“谁来监视这些监视者”而忧心的日本人向美国国家安全局发起了挑战。远诚友加要求国家安全局向世人宣布万能解密机的存在，否则他就采取特别行动。不幸的是，远诚友加在西班牙意外死亡，而刻有口令的戒指却神秘失踪了。大学教授、语言学家戴维·贝克不经意中卷入到国安局的特殊工作中，遭到一个神秘杀手的追杀，两人斗智斗勇，玩起了猫捉老鼠的游戏，足迹遍及塞维利亚的大街小巷。国安局的首席密码破解专家苏珊·弗莱切是贝克的未婚妻，就在贝克被派去西班牙的时候，苏珊被紧急召回总部。她的上司国安局副局长斯特拉思莫尔告诉苏珊一个惊人的消息：
战无不胜的超级电脑万能解密机遇上了不可破解的密码——数字城堡。斯特拉思莫尔让苏珊查出远诚友加同伙的真实身份。随后，苏珊目睹了一个又一个令人震惊的秘密、谎言和背叛，她发现自己不仅是在为她的国家而战，而且是为了她的生命和她所爱的人而战……
数字城堡全文阅读
译者序
楔子
第一章
第二章
第三章
第四章
第五章
第六章
第七章
第八章
第九章
第十章
第十一章
第十二章
第十三章
第十四章
第十五章
第十六章
第十七章
第十八章
第十九章
第二十章
第二十一章
第二十二章
第二十三章
第二十四章
第二十五章
第二十六章
第二十七章
第二十八章
第二十九章
第三十章
第三十一章
第三十二章
第三十三章
第三十四章
第三十五章
第三十六章
第三十七章
第三十八章
第三十九章
第四十章
第四十一章
第四十二章
第四十三章
第四十四章
第四十五章
第四十六章
第四十七章
（完）
作者：丹·布朗
丹·布朗携《纽约时报》最畅销悬疑惊悚小说再度登陆，《达·芬奇密码》姊妹篇《天使与魔鬼》，一部你一旦拿起就再也无法放下的大师大作。
宗教与科学的激烈对抗，人性与神性的正面碰撞；一个古老神秘的地下组织——光照派，一种具有极大毁灭性的高科技武器——反物质，一项迫在眉睫、不可思议的任务……
天使与魔鬼全文阅读
楔子
第一章
第二章
第三章
第四章
第五章
第六章
第七章
第八章
第九章
第十章
第十一章
第十二章
第十三章
第十四章
第十五章
第十六章
第十七章
第十八章
第十九章
第二十章
第二十一章
第二十二章
第二十三章
第二十四章
第二十五章
第二十六章
第二十七章
第二十八章
第二十九章
第三十章
第三十一章
第三十二章
第三十三章
第三十四章
第三十五章
第三十六
第三十七章
第三十八章
第三十九章
第四十章
第四十一章
第四十二章
第四十三章
第四十四章
第四十五章
第四十六章
第四十七章
第四十八章
第四十九章
第五十章
第五十一章
第五十二章
第五十三章
第五十四章
第五十五章
第五十六章
第五十七章
第五十八章
第五十九章
第六十章
第六十一章
第六十二章
第六十三章
第六十四章
第六十五章
第六十六章
第六十七章
第六十八章
第六十九章
第七十章
第七十一章
第七十二章
第七十三章
第七十四章
第七十五章
第七十六章
第七十七章
第七十八章
第七十九章
第八十章
第八十一章
第八十二章
第八十三章
第八十四章
第八十五章
第八十六章
第八十七章
第八十八章
第八十九章
第九十章
第九十一章
第九十二章
附录：对称字
丹·布朗携《纽约时报》最畅销悬疑惊悚小说再度登陆，《达·芬奇密码》姊妹篇《天使与魔鬼》，一部你一旦拿起就再也无法放下的大师大作。
宗教与科学的激烈对抗，人性与神性的正面碰撞；一个古老神秘的地下组织——光照派，一种具有极大毁灭性的高科技武器——反物质，一项迫在眉睫、不可思议的任务……
天使与魔鬼全文阅读
楔子
第一章
第二章
第三章
第四章
第五章
第六章
第七章
第八章
第九章
第十章
第十一章
第十二章
第十三章
第十四章
第十五章
第十六章
第十七章
第十八章
第十九章
第二十章
第二十一章
第二十二章
第二十三章
第二十四章
第二十五章
第二十六章
第二十七章
第二十八章
第二十九章
第三十章
第三十一章
第三十二章
第三十三章
第三十四章
第三十五章
第三十六
第三十七章
第三十八章
第三十九章
第四十章
第四十一章
第四十二章
第四十三章
第四十四章
第四十五章
第四十六章
第四十七章
第四十八章
第四十九章
第五十章
第五十一章
第五十二章
第五十三章
第五十四章
第五十五章
第五十六章
第五十七章
第五十八章
第五十九章
第六十章
第六十一章
第六十二章
第六十三章
第六十四章
第六十五章
第六十六章
第六十七章
第六十八章
第六十九章
第七十章
第七十一章
第七十二章
第七十三章
第七十四章
第七十五章
第七十六章
第七十七章
第七十八章
第七十九章
第八十章
第八十一章
第八十二章
第八十三章
第八十四章
第八十五章
第八十六章
第八十七章
第八十八章
第八十九章
第九十章
第九十一章
第九十二章
附录：对称字
作者: 丹·布朗 [美]
第一章
第二章
第三章
第四章
第五章
第六章
第七章
第八章
第九章
第十章
第十一章
第十二章
第十三章
尾声
第一章
第二章
第三章
第四章
第五章
第六章
第七章
第八章
第九章
第十章
第十一章
第十二章
第十三章
尾声