Discovered Secrets Hidden in Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci

Are there secrets hidden in paintings by Leonarda da Vinci? Many may be quick to dismiss the idea, but it is known numerous past Masters had to be careful in the past – for fear of either offending the church or not yet prepared to present all the facts. Creating something secretly, or cryptically, allowed Masters to reveal what they knew.

Take for instance, Galileo. He released a collection of letters which enabled him to lay claim to discoveries that, at the time, may have cost him his life – if not done secretly. He sent the following string of letters in a letter to a friend: Smaismrmilmepoetaleumibunenugttauiras. He later disclosed the muddled string as the anagram for Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi (I have observed the most distant of planets to have triple form).

This is but one known example of secrets being hidden by Masters. When Doug contacted me about sharing his following findings of discovered secrets in Leonardo da Vinci paintings, the above came to mind. I am also now watching, ‘Ancient Apocalypse’, where Graham Hancock is presenting theories that challenge current day academics. The evidence Graham is displaying questions many things we’ve been told. It is challenging history, and many in the profession are not happy. They’d rather ignore it and keep with the old ideas.

As you read on, Doug presents his discoveries. What he reveals may turn out to be one of the greatest finds yet today. It is for each of us to keep an open mind and consider what is being suggested. No matter what you conclude about his findings, I, for one, greatly admire Douglas for daring to explore further and sharing his work.

There are treasures out there to find! Enjoy!

Dearest Leonardo, I Found Your Puzzle; Your Optical Illusion Unlocked It

WRITTEN BY DOUGLAS M ZIMMERMAN

(Hobbyist Researcher Imagineer, zimmermandouglas61@gmail.com)

It is rare that an amateur makes a new discovery in Renaissance art. Even rarer is the consideration of amateur discoveries by scholars and experts.  I am a hobbyist armchair treasure hunter, searching for clues in the art of published treasure hunts (e.g. The Secret). These modern artists deliberately conceal visual clues in the art to solving the treasure hunts using different techniques to obscure the clues in plain view. I have discovered that Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolas Poussin, and other Renaissance artists used the same techniques to deliberately conceal “artefacts” in their art, in plain view or with the aid of retrieval methods available at the time.

This story is the account of my 4-year journey of discovery chasing cloaked artefacts, clues, of a puzzle engineered by Leonardo da Vinci to protect knowledge worthy of his efforts of concealment. The journey started with the recognition of the optical illusion in the earlier, or Isleworth, Mona Lisa and the two brush strokes in stone. Four megalithic sites are puzzle pieces scattered across several of his paintings. Once recognized, the puzzle pieces must be ‘assembled’ correctly and Leonardo placed confirmation markers in his art to let us know we understood his intent. Upon final assembly, a specific geographic location on the ground is marked, on an island off the southern Bretagne coast of France. The first to believe Leonardo will be rewarded with his knowledge of the resting place of a biblical relic thought lost for over 2,000 years.

I authored the story in the form of a personal letter to Leonardo, a letter he never expected to receive in his lifetime.

He blesses us as he rests.

Dearest Leonardo,

I write this letter with reverence, humility, and joy, a letter you never expected to receive during your lifetime. Your spirit and genius have lived on through your words, anatomical investigations, inventions, and art, as have your secrets. Scholars and experts today insist that you did not conceal secrets nor hidden messages in your artwork, most fervently by our leading expert on you, Dr. Martin J. Kemp of Oxford University. In Martin’s own words from his website:

“Please note that there is absolutely no historical evidence that Leonardo nor other Renaissance painters hid secret images / messages / names in their paintings – even though we have countless drawings, underdrawings, scientific examinations, written testimony, art theory and other documentation. Furthermore, artists could not insert something that requires modern technologies to see.”

We both know this is far from accurate. What Martin does not consider is the cloaked artefacts ARE the historical evidence. Nor does he consider the use of modern technology to simulate methods of artefact retrieval available in your time, which is exactly what I do. Variable powered lenses, color tint, and transparent gemstones were available to sharpen, blur, or tint any image. You also had a camera obscura. No technology is needed at all to see the optical illusion in your earlier Lisa Gherardini, just recognizing the two brush strokes in stone. Martin also forgets the Angel Gabriel you painted in the Annunciation, which disappears when X-rays are applied. Martin, of all people, should recognize there is no coincidence in anything you do.

Leonardo, I present the following narrative and symbol:

…as my credentials to you as I am an amateur and have no others. The Cypriot Syllabary symbol represents our mutual knowledge of the four megalithic sites and puzzle in your paintings. I stumbled upon the puzzle in your art, and after four years of dedicated effort, I solved it in the year 2024, 505 years after your passing, almost to the day.

I am sure you are interested in how I stumbled upon your puzzle, the clues I found, and the steps I took to solve it. My journey, in detail, follows this letter, chasing the clues you left for us to find. A trail or “scia” I believe it is called in Italian. Along the way, a couple of your “tells” for locating secrets became apparent and I used them to progress through the puzzle and a few other of your paintings. Pointing or gesturing objects or figures was the first tell, Saint John the Baptist, Bacchus, and the Angel Gabriel in your work in the Annunciation are all part of the puzzle. The other tell is the linear and spatial asymmetry of the three Orion’s Belt Stars, inspiration gained from the Templars use of the Belt Stars I am guessing. Both of your portraits of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo (Mona Lisa), Ginevra de Benci, Portrait of a Musician, and Virgin and Child with St. Anne utilize this tell to locate secrets.

 The puzzle clue I most admire, because of its engineering, is the one I stumbled upon first that started my journey, the optical illusion in your earlier Lisa Gh. Experts have never recognized those two brush strokes leaning into each other off the upper right edge of the dark feature, but I did, having researched the southern Bretagne coastline at the Vilane and Loire outflows for another project.

The only reason I recognized the engineered disguise, and those brush strokes was due to our terrestrial image technology we call Google Earth; I had no reason to know there was a megalithic site on the southern Bretagne coastline. Your optical illusion took me there, the two brush strokes in stone. I found that you defined an optical illusion in your Notebooks on Light and Shade, Volume 1, Chapter 2, Paragraph 48, doing so in the form of an instruction. Experts have never heeded those words, but I did, and I knew I unlocked something extraordinary, otherwise why would you invest such an effort? An awe-inspiring effort.

What is not lost on me is the accuracy of the detail and scaling of the geographic features and sites you represent. Experts are still trying to understand how you created a detailed map of Imola in 1502. Now we can add to their burden the roughly 4,000 square-mile area of southern Bretagne inland from Saint Just to the coastline and offshore to Hoedic and Houat Islands. I would think the experts would be happy with more to study.

Leonardo, I just like to solve puzzles, and I hope you do not mind that a hobbyist solved yours. I do not yet understand why I was blessed with this knowledge and perhaps I am not meant to.  I assume, now that I have solved the puzzle, you would want the knowledge shared, which, coming from me, makes it ridiculously unbelievable to anyone else these days. I must persist until I am successful despite being an uncredentialed mere mortal and never accused of being a genius. Some of your hidden artefacts have been obliterated by well-meaning preservationists that simply do not know how to “see” them nor even believe they exist. So time is of the essence.

Given the world is on fire right now, perhaps this is a time you have foreseen? My intent is to publish this letter and the journey account to as broad an audience as possible, asking for nothing but credit for the discoveries. I just need one of your scholars to suspect they have been fooled by the best and your evidence will guide the way. No one has to believe me at all as I am just the guide, but they should believe you and your depth of genius. You are still a mystery to us Leonardo, we love it, and we are better for it.

You bless us as You Rest.

Douglas M Zimmerman, Hobbyist Researcher Imagineer, Colorado, United States of America, aka “New World”

The Journey to Solve the Puzzle

Leonardo, this journey should never have happened because I was not researching you at all. Your life and contributions to us have been well-studied by scholars and experts for centuries to a level of consensus we call “settled science”. I was researching a French Master artist, Nicolas Poussin, who succeeded you by over 100 years, and the geographical shapes I was finding in his landscapes.  He seemed fond for the Bretagne region of France and incorporated distinctive coastline shapes of this region in his art, emphasizing the northern notch with the three Saints (Brieux, Malo, Michel) and the southern coastline at the Vilane and Loire Rivers outflows, which presents with perceived visual mirrored symmetry from northwest to southeast.

I wanted to know more about any connections Nicolas had to the Bretagne region, so I searched our information repositories (we call Google) with the criteria ‘Poussin Bretagne Brittany’. Brittany is the modern name we use for Bretagne. The search returned 5 images on the first page; the first four pertained to the search criteria but the fifth image did not at all as it was obviously not even a Poussin. The subject, a young woman sitting at ¾ profile, gave me a sense of familiarity when I noticed her smile.

Leonardo, the fifth image was what we believe is your first portrait of Lisa Gherardini, later Madam Lisa Giocondo, wife of a wealthy Florentine. We call this painting the earlier Mona Lisa based on its known provenance. I was not looking for Her, She found me, and I was captured. I had never seen Her before and I quickly knew I had to learn everything I could about Her. Experts today believe this work to be incomplete and some doubt it is even by your hand. They cite the lifeless color palette, the sketched in background, and the poorly executed dark treed island reflected downward without a reflective medium. The two brush strokes leaning into each other off the right edge of the dark feature have never been recognized by experts and simply discarded as an incomplete thought. I suspect you would be chuckling by now.

About 100 years after She was created, an anonymous artist set about ‘finishing’ your earlier Mona Lisa based on the consensus view of experts of the work left to be done. I call it the Oslo Mona Lisa as it is in the National Museum of Art in Oslo, Norway. They “improved” the color palette, added water and detail to resolve the treed island and downward reflection, and finished the sky background, eliminating the hatching. The two brush strokes were out of mind and discarded. To modern experts, this is settled science, and no new knowledge could change their minds, especially coming from an amateur. They are seeing exactly what you want them to see having created just enough detail to manipulate their perceptions. Leonardo, the optical illusion in your earlier Mona Lisa has completely deceived everyone for over 500 years as no one even suspects the puzzle you encoded in your art. It was serendipity that presented Her image to me and set me on this journey. I am in awe, sir, of your genius, imagination, and engineering to conceal clues to the puzzle in plain view.

Your painting is now privately owned and vaulted in Switzerland, out of sight except for rare occasions celebrating your life and accomplishments. It is administered and curated by the Mona Lisa Foundation, a rather large organization for a single painting. Curators of one painting or Protectors of the secrets within it?

The Optical Illusion

When I saw the dark feature for the first time, I actually thought it was damage or some sort of Rorschach test, interpreting mirrored ink blots on folded paper. As I looked closer at the detail, the full vertical right edge seemed familiar, a shape I had seen recently; the Vilane and Loire Rivers outflows in the southern Bretagne coastline.

Using our capabilities to photograph the earth from above in space, I created a side-by-side image of the full vertical right edge of the dark feature and the terrestrial image of the relevant section of the southern Bretagne coastline. The visual similarity is certainly strong, now how can I prove that concealing the coastline profile was your intent? Leonardo, it did not take long for me to know that the answer was in the two brush strokes. If your intent was a coastline profile, the two brush strokes must represent something on the ground at the Vilane River outflow.

I magnified the earth image at the Vilane River outflow and without too much effort, found a collapsed megalithic site in exactly the right place with exactly the right shape. Dolmen du Crapaud near Billiers, France. It was at this moment I realized the magnitude of what I had found, and experts have not demonstrated nor shared any knowledge of this at all. I had proven your intent, the optical illusion, and your purposeful deception.

Instead of being a dark treed island reflected downward as depicted in the Oslo Mona Lisa, there is no reflection at all nor the need for a reflective medium. The entire dark feature is NEGATIVE space in the work.

To engineer the dark feature, you exploited the visual vertical symmetry of the southern Bretagne coastline and added a ‘disguise’, in yellow, to create the perception of a horizontal primary feature reflected, all in plain view.

Thus, the Optical Illusion. I found that you described an optical illusion in the form of an instruction in your Notebooks on Light and Shade, Volume 1, Chapter 2 Linear Perspective, Paragraph 48 On Drawing Outline,

“Consider with greatest care the form of the outline of every object, and the character of their undulations. And these undulations must be separately studied, as to whether the curves are composed of arched convexities or angular concavities.”

Experts first saw the convexities of the dark feature outline and never studied the concavities because the two brush strokes made no sense to them. Leonardo, I first saw the concavities of the dark feature outline because of my geographical research and proved your intent by identifying the megalithic site represented by the two brush strokes. Experts, discarding the two brush strokes, have only ever seen the convexities, which is why they continue to see what you want them to see.

Inland, A map

With the southern Bretagne coastline and Dolmen du Crapaud identified, everything to the right must by inland, a map.

Nothing was obvious in that area of the painting, but closer inspection suggested highly faded artefacts were present. I use a tool to improve contrast and visibility of artefacts in images. When I finished processing the inland area, I was stunned by the profusion of symbols and artefacts, having faded badly over the centuries.

At the top of the inland area I recognized a ‘key’ symbol with numbers to the right and a word below the numbers. I have yet to understand their purpose.

Inland from the dolmen are two symbols roughly in line, the first being unrecognized as yet. The second symbol appears to be lensed to call attention to it, so I set out to identify it. Two months would pass until I finally found the symbol and its meaning. I even adopted it as the symbol of my work. I found it to be from the Cypriot Syllabary, which preceded ancient Greek on Cyprus. Leonardo, we know you spent some time on Cyprus and likely learned of the Syllabary while there.

The symbol  “su” has a context of physical location, similar to how “zu” is used in modern German. The ‘location’ context of the symbol, on a map, meant I needed to do another earth image overlay of the inland terrestrial area with the painting area. I used the coastline profile and dolmen (two brush strokes) as registration marks to align the image overlay with the painting. Zooming in on the earth image as before, the Syllabary symbol unambiguously marks a megalithic site near Saint-Just.

Chateau Bu, a complicated arrangement of standing stones and stone circles, is the second megalithic site. The overlay also shows an undocumented large circular tumulus of stones between a farmer’s two fields marked by the unrecognized symbol. I can see a well-worn tractor path between the fields around the stones. Further research is needed here as well as contacting the farmer.

OR, and this idea just came to me as I write this, the unrecognized symbol may not by Cypriot Syllabary at all, which is why I cannot find it. I suspect it may be a representation of Orion’s Belt, your intent to provide a subtle hint at what to do with the two onshore megalithic sites. I noticed the Belt was not a straight line and the intersection point of all three lines was not equidistant from the ends of the Belt. The overlay I created today confirmed my suspicion and I believe your intent. Since this is a brand-new realization, I will continue the journey as it occurred. I did not need the hint after all though it would have saved me a lot of time.

Leonardo, it was at this point I took a step back to review and reconsider your engineering of the optical illusion incorporating negative space and orientation dysphoria, the southern Bretagne coastline, and symbols marking two seemingly unrelated megalithic sites about 50 kilometers apart. First, as far as I know, I am the only one seeing your hidden artefacts, so as an amateur, they do not exist until one of your experts says so.

The images I created to visualize your clues and my explanation of what you had done to conceal them are compelling and completely defendable. I was confident enough at this point to reach out to experts to share and discuss the visual evidence I had generated so far. The Mona Lisa Foundation, owners of your earlier Mona Lisa, responded that I was not qualified to talk to them. Done. Noah Charney and Dr. Martin J Kemp were the only two responders that engaged. Noah provided positive interest though completely skeptical, advising and mentoring me to a degree which I greatly appreciate. Martin vehemently insists that concealed artefacts and secret messages do not exist in your art nor that of any other Renaissance artist. He is our top expert on all things about you and has done master classes to that effect, which I attended. I attempted persistence with Martin that did not prevail, which is a failure I truly regret. I want Martin to know what I know as he has dedicated his career to you. Leonardo, at his point, I was on my own and I knew you had more for me to find.

“They almost Line Up”

 I knew I had to find a connection between Dolmen du Crapaud and Chateau Bu. I plotted them both on a terrestrial image of the southern Bretagne coastline and simply “stared” at them for guidance. All I could think to do was draw a line from Chateau Bu to Dolmen du Crapaud, and out into the bay.

In doing so, I noticed it ALMOST lined up with an island just off the coast, Hoedic Island, and its sister Houat Island. I wondered first if it was your intent that the line intersected the island and you were slightly off in your positioning, but I quickly dismissed inaccuracy. Even if the line did intersect, what would that mean? I had no idea, and I was stuck with no way forward. Five months later, serendipity would intervene again.

I was watching a performance of a show using our modern-day camera obscura we call television. The show was hosted by Scott Wolter and is called America Unearthed, and the topic was the three obelisks in our New York City. Near the end of the performance, three small obelisks were placed on a large map of New York City and a straight line drawn through them, just missing one of the obelisks. Scott stated, “look, they ALMOST line up”, and I felt a shiver go through my body and tears flooded my eyes, what just happened? I knew those words. I watched intently as Scott suggested a solution to the placement of the obelisks, the linear and spatial asymmetry of Orion’s Belt Stars. As the obelisks presented a decent overlay of the Belt Stars, serendipity had provided my solution, and my way forward.

The Secret in the Painting with not a Single Brush Stroke

I retrieved an image of the Orion constellation from my Sky Atlas to overlay onto the painting, right-to-left, Chateau Bu then Dolmen du Crapaud with the center star. Right-to-left as is your way. The third star marked an empty area in the negative space, but extremely near a distinctive curve in the coastline profile. I had noticed of a curve like that when investigating the line overlay with Hoedic Island geography and its immediate area.

Hoedic Island has a sister, Houat Island, just a few miles to the north. Houat has a distinctive beach coastline facing Hoedic. It is an asymmetrical arc that matches the arced coastline profile in the painting near the third star. Leonardo, I interpreted the Houat Island arced coastline as a confirmation marker. Since only Hoedic Island’s relative position is marked by the third star, the arced coastline is how you demonstrated your intent to conceal the identity of Hoedic Island in plain view, without a single brush stroke.

I wondered if there were more clues in your earlier Mona Lisa. So far, I found the southern  Bretagne coastline, 2 megalithic sites onshore in Bretagne and using Orion’s Belt Stars, identified Hoedic Island offshore.

To Her right is a “bump” in the horizon that is actually concave. I found it to be a closeup of the Vilane River outflow, matching several points to a terrestrial view.

Is this another confirmation marker Leonardo that we understood your intent regarding the 2 brush strokes? Does Hoedic Island have megalithic sites? Yes it does, and these sites must be represented in your other artwork, somewhere. I knew a couple of your “tells” now (pointing and Orion’s Belt Stars) and I would use them to move forward with the puzzle.

Experts consider the sky background in your earlier Mona Lisa to be “sketched-in” and another reason they think this painting is incomplete. My aging eyesight is why I saw what you were doing in the sky background. I looked at the sky without my corrective lenses and detected shapes and angles in the hatching with blurred vision. I immediately knew what you were doing, creating a “venetian blind” effect to obscure hidden artefacts. Blurring defeats the hatching and reveals the artefacts, but they, too, are blurred, but recognizable.

In the sky, right, I first found the bird in flight which I believe designates orientation and visual scale of the artefacts. Beneath the bird, I see a square, the left side of it labeled “ v. dr.” .  It took that to mean Via Dolorosa, which meant the square was Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and other artefacts point to Station 11 of the Cross, in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, as a site of importance. Below that station is said to be the tomb of Adam. The sky left is a bit more challenging to visualize and recognize. My best efforts suggest you are depicting Aksum, Ethiopia with the artefacts I am seeing, like a domed building and nearby obelisk. Jerusalem and Aksum depicted in the sky background? I am not a biblical historian so this would only make sense to me later on in conjunction with other evidence.

Looking for Clues and Puzzle Pieces

The earlier Mona Lisa revealed the existence of a puzzle in your artwork and provided several clues and identified Hoedic Island as a place of interest. Our experts today believe many of your paintings are incomplete, but my sense is that these paintings are as complete as they needed to be to achieve your objectives, while voids simply added to the disguise of whatever you are concealing. “Incomplete” equal deception is my formula for you.

The following are the paintings in which I identified clues, most of which helped me progress in the puzzle to a solution. I do not claim I found all the clues in all your paintings, nor do I understand all the clues I found, but I found enough to solve your puzzle.

• St. Jerome in the Wilderness
• Louvre Mona Lisa
• Bacchus
• Virgin and Child with St. Anne
• Ginevra de Benci
• Portrait of a Musician
• The Annunciation
• Virgin of the Rocks
• St. John the Baptist

St. Jerome in the Wilderness

I started with St. Jerome in the Wilderness because of the voids and perceived “incompleteness”. It certainly does look incomplete. I see a lot of detail in the dark areas which made me wonder why there was so much detail there while larger component drafting and detail were missing? Those areas must not be necessary to your purpose, so I looked elsewhere in the painting and noticed the “posed” curve of the tail of the lion and the detail it encircles.

I recognized your intent to depict the sagittal midline of the human brain having studied human anatomy myself. I created an overlay, which aligned perfectly to a human brain image, and confirmed your intent. I was excited about making that association, but I was not the first, by about 10 years. A team of neuroscientists made the same observation and published a paper in 2013. I was not the first, but I found it on my own using my methods. I felt validated for the first time, but no puzzle pieces found in this work.

Louvre Mona Lisa

Your second Lisa Gherardini is in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France and is the most famous and valuable of all paintings. Her smile has captivated us for centuries, just as you intended. While I can see She is filled with hidden artefacts that I have yet to understand, I found large stones on Her image left shoulder and a notch in rocks farther to the left. After quite a bit of searching, I found an image of Dolmen du Crapaud from behind its large leaning stone and other stones around it. The stones look very much like the stones on her shoulder. A related image shows a notch in the rocks below the dolmen that suggests the notch in the painting. I am satisfied that this represents the same megalithic site, Dolmen du Crapaud, you represented as the two brush strokes leaning into each other in your earlier Mona Lisa. The view angles you depict in Mona Lisa as well as the notch in the rocks strongly suggested you were physically at the dolmen.

The sky background is loaded with artefacts as are her throat and chest, and I have yet to recognize them. You have so many layers of pigment and artefacts hidden and stacked in those layers that I am finding it difficult to accurately resolve individual items. I also noticed you like to conceal artefacts in the glare or flare of brightness on objects, like the soft glow in her forehead. Just recently, I found the word “Scia” in that soft forehead glow.

SCIA   noun

Leonardo, are you using the word Scia to advise us that a “trail of breadcrumbs” exists and to follow it? Just like the trail of clues I have been following before I got that advice. Finding that just energized me more.

Original Bacchus

Most experts think you used Salai as a model in your work, Bacchus being one of them. This painting is also homed in the Louvre in Paris and the Louvre makes available high resolution digital images for research. I downloaded both pre and post restoration images which are the sources for my work herein. There are a lot of pointing things in this painting, both hands, a big toe, and a staff. I have not resolved anything with the top hand or the staff yet, but the bottom hand is pointing down into a dark area where you concealed a representation of the outline of Hoedic Island, the finger pointing into the general area of the dolmen and menhir on the island. The big toe is pointing to a letter V for a yet to be determined purpose.

In the original, the dark, crisp outline representing Hoedic Island can clearly be seen at the arrow. The dark, crisp outline and the V were completely obliterated during the 2016 restoration by the Louvre as were many other artefacts I have yet to resolve for visibility where the staff and other finger is pointing.

What I find fascinating is that the Louvre inserted a large bunch of grapes at the arrow during the restoration so Bacchus had something to point at. Is this an indication they knew about your pointing “tell”?

The configuration of the three dark dots to the left of the V, the center dot overlaying the V, looked familiar, resembling Orion’s Belt Stars, but the asymmetry was off. I created an overlay and the resulting image confirmed my suspicion. The white dots in the overlay are from the orb of the Salvatore Mundi. Also, a close correlation to the dark dots which were also cleansed from the work during the restoration.

Virgin and Child with St. Anne

Your Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the positioning of the figures suggested Orion’s Belt Stars to me right away and the overlay confirmed it.

You passed along the significance of the Belt Stars to Cesare da Sesto which he incorporated in his Virgin and Child with Lamb, after yours. Cesare did not use figures to encode the Belt Stars but rather stones accurately represented on the ground. He was a bit clumsy and obvious with the lamb’s pointing leg to directly indicate a fourth star. Did you indicate a fourth star in your version? Yes, the fourth star aligns with the lamb’s nose, not obvious at all since I missed it the first time through. You both used the lamb to indicate the fourth star. I am sure that has a meaning others will understand. I suspect the Belt Stars are locators as well, and perhaps the relevant knowledge is the fourth star?

Ginevra de Benci

Ginevra de’ Benci resides in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., United States and is the only one of your works in the western hemisphere. I am fascinated by this one because it offers so many challenges to decode. Since I had learned your Orion’s Belt Stars tell, Ginevra was the first one I tried it on to see if the 3^rd star marked anything. I scaled and aligned the stars with her eyes, right to left as always. The 3^rd star marked a darkened area on her hairband. I cleaned up the image to reveal what looks like Cypriot Syllabary symbols at the 3^rd star. Not only had I found symbols, but I also proved the tell worked and I would use it again. I know that spikey background has secrets I have yet to resolve. I am starting with the dark pigment swirls. Blur should come in handy.

Portrait of a Musician

Portrait of a Musician was featured in a recent article about a conservation effort that revealed musical notes on the paper the musician is holding, his fingers pointing to them. What was not noticed was the encoding of Orion’s Belt Stars in the positions of the notes on the scale. I call this daisy chaining because the alignment holds while advancing the pattern one star at a time. Leonardo, it looks like you have something hidden in the shading of the shoulder drape I have yet to resolve. Also, the relationship of the head and neck to the body looks like the head is too far back on top of the torso. I have not seen this positioning in any other of your works so I am suspecting some intent.

I also noticed your initials in the eyes of the Musician. I suspect applying the Belt Stars to the eyes, right to left, marks knowledge but have not yet been able to resolve the area.

The Annunciation

This painting comes from your collaboration with Verrocchio; we understand you painted the background and the Angel Gabriel. Experts have discovered that when the painting is exposed to X-rays, Gabriel disappears. Was this deliberate? What I took notice of was the distance between the Angel and the now not so Virgin Mary, it just seemed odd to me, and purposeful. I just started staring at your work in the void between the Angel Gabriel and Mary, specifically the trees in the background. Then paragraph 48 came back to me, and I focused on the outline of the trees.

And then I saw it, starting between the trees in the background to the left, down then to the right  under and along the bottom of the trees. This was your representation of the broken needle peninsula and coastal profile of Hoedic Island, in negative space. I did a quick overlay of the island earth image, and everything lined up nicely. Knowing your “follow the fingers” tell , Gabriel is pointing to a specific point on the island. I had been using a clean earth image with no landmarks so the first thing to do was to add landmarks back. I created the Hoedic Island landmark overlay to determine what Gabriel was pointing to as there was no doubt in my mind that is exactly what he was doing. I was not disappointed. Using the Hoedic peninsula as an alignment and registration point, the landmark overlay showed a megalithic site at Gabriel’s fingertips, Dolmen de la Croix, of the Cross. This was our third megalithic site puzzle piece and first on Hoedic Island.

I started looking for a confirmation marker as has been your practice, Leonardo, to visualize your intent. I found the marker by extending Gabriel’s fingertips and eyesight line to where they intersect. A single tree trunk, with branches right and left opposite each other. A Cross. Dolmen de la Croix. This confirmed your intent and our first megalithic site on Hoedic Island. One more to go, and the painting most likely to conceal a megalithic site is one themed on rocks, your Virgin of the Rocks, the colorful version.

One more thing about your work in this painting, specifically the four most prominent trees. Their variable spacing and heights strongly suggest you encoded the asymmetry of the three Orion’s Belt Stars, right to left and left to right. The spacing is deliberate, but what is the message you are conveying?

Virgin of the Rocks, National Gallery, London

Both versions of your Virgin of the Rocks are in art museums in Europe, one in the National Gallery in London and one in the Louvre in Paris. I researched the more colorful one in London and immediately noticed the jagged profile of the top of the cavern opening and a shape I have already presented.

The profile represents the southern Bretagne coastline, including the Vilane, Loire and Gironde Rivers outflow. The point of La Rochelle is also represented.

You included a specific detail in the Gironde River outflow to confirm your intent to depict the coastline. The mouth of the river has a very distinctive hook to the south that is clearly represented in the right place in the cavern profile in the painting. This same Bretagne coastline profile links this painting to the earlier Mona Lisa as well, for those keeping score for attribution debates.

Virgin of the Rocks had more to offer that I missed when I found the southern Bretagne coastline profile in the cavern opening. Up to this point, the fourth megalithic site had proven elusive until I revisited the painting as part of an overall re-look. I did not miss it this time. On the right side of the cavern is an opening with a standing stone centered in it. Above it are two narrow stones intersecting at an angle. These narrow stones suggested Dolmen du Crapaud to me, the two brush strokes in stone, but I had not come across a standing stone yet.

Since we are looking for a megalithic site on Hoedic Island, I wondered if there was a standing stone in the vicinity of Dolmen de la Croix. A landmark did not appear with the Dolmen landmark in the original earth image I created of Hoedic. I zoomed in a bit closer on the earth image this time and a new landmark appeared near Dolmen de la Croix. A standing stone is called a menhir, and the nearby megalithic site is named Menhir de la Vierge.

“Stone of the Virgin” is the megalithic site represented as the standing stone in Virgin of the Rocks. Leonardo, a very clever confirmation marker. I now had two megalithic sites on Hoedic Island, ready for the next step. Solve the puzzle.

Solving the Puzzle

Leonardo, with the two megalithic sites on Hoedic Island identified, the only thing left to do was to create the overlay of Orion’s Belt Stars with the Hoedic Island earth image and  the two megalithic sites, right to left as before.

With the right star on the Menhir and the center star on the Dolmen, the third star marks a specific location on the ground on Hoedic Island. No more deception, we have followed the “scia” to the end, nothing else to solve.

We have run aground at

47 degrees 20 minutes 23 seconds North,

  2 degrees 52 minutes 07 seconds West

The third star marks the location of the knowledge you have so skillfully protected. I know where the knowledge is now but I did not know what the knowledge represented. Leonardo, as you can imagine, nothing could prepare me for what I was about to find in your last painting, Saint John the Baptist. “Follow the fingers” would come into play twice more.

Saint John the Baptist

This was to be your last painting, another suspected Salai occurrence, and the keeper of your knowledge of what is hidden on Hoedic Island. Such a jolly face, but we gravitate to the raised hand, what we call the “John gesture”. Most  believe it is a gesture to God above and assign “Dios” to it without necessarily recognizing the hand is signing the letter D. I ‘followed” the finger into the dark above and around it. Above it, I could see a horizontal linear tint change at the tip but could never resolve it. I did clearly resolve the “ I C “ to the right of the finger though. “DIC” meant you were spelling something and the letters were a huge hint as to what it was. I looked to the left of the finger and found an “ e “. It would be months before I could identify and resolve the “Ho” to the left of the “e”.

A lot of stacked layers in that area did an excellent job of obscuring those letters, Leonardo, but I finally got the message that confirmed the location you were guiding us to. H-O-E-D-I-C, Hoedic Island, France.

I did not overlook the barely visible fingertips of his other hand gesturing to his chest from under the crossed arm. I inverted your colors for visibility and added a touch of blur to help resolve the artefacts. Without too much trouble, I was able to sufficiently resolve the scene at the top of the arm where he is pointing. Leonardo, at that moment, the purpose for your puzzle and deception was revealed.

The Underground Chamber on Hoedic Island

As suggested by your Virgin of the Rocks, I found your depiction of an underground cavern or chamber on Hoedic Island. In the cavern is a box in ¾ profile, about twice as wide as it is tall, with a large Knights Templar shield leaning back against it, identifying both Depositors and Protectors. Two ornaments adorn the top of the box and a bright light emerges from between them, illuminating the chamber. Leonardo, your puzzle protects your knowledge of the location of the Ark of the Covenant and from what I see, you may have been in the chamber. This is your only painting where I found a depiction of the Ark and other objects that may be with it.

How did the Ark arrive on Hoedic Island?

The path and timing of the Ark of the Covenant arriving on Hoedic Island is certainly not known to us but is likely known to you and its journey may have also been preserved in your artwork, specifically your earlier Mona Lisa. My theory is that the Templars spent considerable time on Cyprus and learned how the locals used chambered megalithic sites to vault their treasures. Since Bretagne has its fair share of chambered megalithic sites, it would not surprise me at all that the Templars utilized this practice upon returning home from the Crusades and as their influence and wealth grew. Perhaps Hoedic Island was created as the ultimate safehouse to securely vault the Templars most valuable treasures. As the Templars escaped La Rochelle in their ships in 1307, did they stop to make a deposit at Hoedic Island on their way north? I just cannot image they would risk the Ark out in the open for long being chased by the French king nor even risk it to the open sea to a little-known “New World”. Instead, leave it securely hidden on familiar territory and draw pursuers away from it; Nature’s way.

Leonardo, my personal journey of discovery continues as another master artist from France 100 years after your passing, apparently had the same knowledge as you of the location of the Ark of the Covenant. Nicolas Poussin, a self-portrait. I have found several examples of Hoedic Island in his art; he does most of his concealment work “in the clouds” of a sky background, leveraging perceived pareidolia to enhance his disguises. This is his Dance to the Music of Time. Angel dust to the right marks the profile of Hoedic Island in the cloud. The angel dust trailing left to a dark area in the clouds is of great interest.

FIN