Wowsa. It seems these days that anything involving the words ‘Jesus’ ‘DaVinci’ and ‘Templar’ will be sufficient to earn great wads of column inches. Regular readers of Blather will not be new to the Priory of Sion conspiracy theories, but may be as perplexed as we are by the global tourism and publishing industry which surrounds it. Especially since any Fortean worth his salt will be aware that the entire things is a steaming pile of bullshit.
And there’s no sign of it abating. The newest twist in the ‘Jesus Kids’ saga comes from Renzo Manetti, a Florentine architect and writer. As The Guardian explain:
A string of artists working from the middle of the 14th century near Florence painted the Virgin Mary as they imagined her to have been while she was pregnant. The best-known of these swelling Madonnas is by the great 15th century Tuscan artist Piero della Francesca. It shows an apparently dejected mother-to-be with one hand resting on the burgeoning front of her maternity gown
There’s nothing new here: an essential re-cycling of decades old conspiracy theories which all stem from the work of Henry Lincoln et al in the 1970’s.
What makes this noteworthy is the expert testimony of an art-lover and critic who at least knows what he is talking about in his particular subject matter.
Was Mary up the duff? (from the Guardian)
The DaVinci Crock
