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Mona Lisa into 2013 – Da Vinci Codes and Hidden Symbols: A Look Through History’s 510 year old mystery Through New Eyes

The recent discovery of Leonard Da Vinci’s hidden symbols, painted on canvas, below the surface of the mysterious image of Mona Lisa stunned the research team entrusted to investigate the painting.The markings, discovered through x ray technology to have been painted prior to finishing stokes, has the art world and symbology world atwitter.

In the last three years, researchers intent on revealing the late master’s 500 year old secrets have declared stunning new developments, including, what they claim is the number 72 painted behind Mona Lisa’;s right eye. History would be wise to take notice.

Now we know Da Vinci was born April 15th 1452 ( tax day) and began the Mona Lisa at the age of 51, after a lifetime of study in mathamatics, war engineering technologies, creating far reaching proto types of submarines, heloicopters, etc….This man was so far ahead of his time, he still captivates the world today. I have seen the painting several times, first as a small child in 1967, and then again over the years as I have returned to Paris on business and pleasure. I have watched the tourists scratch their heads.. They KNOW there is a mystery behind her smile. She know somethiing… She has a secret, a very important secret that can chance peoples lives. When she tells this secret to the the rest of the world, if she tells it of course, a lot of people will disagree with her… but, she knows what she knows, no one can chance that..

So as researchers have started their investigation on the eyes, and hit pay dirt, now they must come to terms with, what I think, could be a revolutionary way to look at Da Vinci in his majestic entirety.. in ways Dan Brown may have pointed to…. To give you the story in a nutshell, we start with this http://www.ibtimes.com/mona-lisas-eyes-reveal-da-vincis-real-code-art-historians-250385

Now on to my ponderance. or rather ponderances…..
What if,hidden behind Mona Lisa’s smile, lies a pattern of markings, with a hidden message for a later date? Should we be looking closely at the entire canvas for clues, not just the eyes? We know that what Da Vinci feared most were floods, tidal waves, drowning, water gone wrong. Note the serene water behind Mona Lisa. Could her secret have to do with a amazing insight Da Vinci had about water, and perhaps his answer is hidden behind not just the eyes of the portrait, but behind the entire canvas. Could the peaceful enigma the world knows as “Mona Lisa” actually hide a torrential downpour, a tsunami of water, all dressed up in soft beguiling pigment? Is the most secretive and mysterious smile on earth really a message that, like calm waters turn to rough seas, so too do warm smiles turn into gnashing teeth.Da Vinci, the master of dichotomy, would be capable of such a message. In fact, it would be right up his alley.

His “Riddles”, a corpus of moody and brillantly penatrating drawings sketches and writings, drip deeply with his fear of water. Read his seminal insights on water engineering, and water weaponry in this regard. Floods, consuming floods, controlling water all spelled out in detail…It is as if he is predicting Katrina, Irene, Superstorm Sandy, etc. The man used parhcment sparingly. he could write backwards, and with both hands. He understood water’s fearful symetry long before it became a fashionble term.His eyes saw differently, as Mozart’s ears heard differently, as the rarest among us have the rarest of gifts to stun us centuries later.

Da Vinci actually SAW things differently, that is to say that he took in motion unlike other human beings, He could calculate depth, velocity, color in an instant, would gaze for hours watching birds fly, spent his greatest energies on water…always water..his greatest fear and his greatest problem solving issue….Now for a man bent on hiding his riddles for future generations, it would be just like him to hide his greatest riddles behind his greatest works. Perhaps this is why he kept the painting till he died…..

Now what if he created hidden markings, codes, riddles, behind the entire canvas arena of the Mona Lisa? What if there is a broad constellation of messages embedded in the canvas, delivered in the same manner as he entered crytic knowledge in his codex’s? What if, in many of his late paintings, Da Vinci left clues, clues he wanted kept hidden from the prying eyes of the church, or potential enemies, or feuding ducalities? It stands to reason, considering this genius’s methodology, incredible  acccuracies  and clandestine ways, and in light of his times, Da Vinci had to hide much of what he created.What if researchers have only just begun to unravel the tip of the glacier.Leonardo’s greatest riddles may just be revealed soon.What if Da Vinci had more than one code? ……and what if the codes are hidden in plain sight?. We are on the advent of looking at his art, and the art of the entire renaissance with bold new eyes…….Thomas Schoenberger

 

Thomas Schoenberger

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Jacob Orbrecht, The Black Plaque and Avian Flu

I have always enjoyed listening to the mostly forgotten music of composer Jacob Orbrecht.I admit finding out about the composer quite by accident. He came from a small town in the Netherlands that attracted my curiosity for other reasons.
But his music stands out, ethereal, and somehow almost shamanistic, especially the music he wrote for the dead, i.e. masses. The town, in the 14th century,was bustling with trade and indutry. Then plague hit and strangely, nothing prior to the 15th century seems to be extant, even though we know that the town was a well known trade hub in the prior century.
What about the dress of the plague doctors – I believe that may be a clue. My belief is that the historians were wrong about much of the “Black Death” I have watched the usual “History channel” promotions and even though I know epidemiologists and they tell me my hunches are wrong, I believe at some later date, scientists will start to seek avian evidence from the 14th century ( detritus in their ancient nesting places) and be quite surprised to find that , with all the supposition they have given to their Black Death theories, there seems to be a profound lack of contemporary accounts of dead mice.
Sure we know that 1/3 of Europe died in the Great Plague of 1347-1352. For such a terrifying event , filled with stress beyond belief, why would so many so called Plague Doctors dress in odd Bird like masks? We are led to believe the rats were the cause,or rather, the fleas from the rats that came with the ships into the old Italian port cities of Genoa Milan., so forth. Go to any port town today and witness the birds that flock around the ships. Why have no scientists sought out examining the bones of birds that can be dated to this period? Perhaps it could be something to consider.
But I digress. The Plague Doctor (Italian: medico della peste, Dutch: pestmeester, German: Pestarzt) was a true spectacle.Donning the 14th century version of the HazMat suit, these “doctors” were usually hired hands, meant to scope out the truly horrifying outbreak areas, hired by the powers that be to report and quarantine the areas the city fathers feared to inspect personally. 

Just as we have seen in modern days,as “clean up crews” contain nuclear accidents, (only to later die of radiation posioning), these Plague doctors had a high incidence of death. Might the city fathers have purposely designed the avian head garb, knowing full well the Plague was associated with birds, not rats? Might the heavy cloaks these fellows wore have been actual carriers of an avian flu tha is lost to history today? Should attention be cast on old pigoen nesting sites nestled in Gothic era cathedrals , not human graves? Surely Thomas, its a long shot, my scientist friends say.

I quietly counter that nobody has demonstrated one rodent skeleton from the time to prove their theories of Bubonic Plague I was force fed all my life. The 14th century human skeletal remains found in European mass grave sites still remain our greatest hope to coming up with root casual agents for the wholesale die off, they say. But still. we need to look to the birds as a possible prime suspect I counter.

 

We may look closely at the eves and archers mounts of the 14th C buildings and seek our answers in where pigeon and sea birds made their nests over the last 6 centuries. The cathedrals and palaces remain a potential treasure site where perhaps, such evidence may lie. . The town where Orbrecht was born is a point of study for me. I have been there a number of times, investigating our feathered friends of the sky, seeking answers outside of the Universities and labs, studying the old market squares, including this Netherlander city. where pigeons still gather in the ancient city center. The well known 14th century die off sites in Europe include Avingon, Genoa, Venice Paris, London. etc. In the case of Orbrecht, his hometown( Ghent) was a die off site in the preceding century before he was born. It is written in the city records of the time.

Happening upon such a ethereal composer as I seek other knowledge is a side benefit that comes with the thrill of discovery. He probably did not know much about what had happened to his forefathers, just like most people do not know much of what lies beneath their very feet, or for that matter, what their forefathers did in the preceding century. When I tell people that San Francisco had a plague before and during the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906, they are startled. Its true and the information is readily available. When I tell them that history is full of mysterious plagues followed by cleansing fires, they ask for evidence. Its all there. London 1664-1666, SF 1900-!907,. etc etc etc. Rinse and repeat. — T. Andrew Schoenberger

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Middle Eastern Travels and a Planned Musical Journey

So in a couple of weeks, I trek the middle east. It’s an Arab winter, filled with the wanderlust for new music that seems to punctuate my life.  My plan to to use infusion to mix my western ears with the sounds of the holy land and see what comes out — to speak/write  in new musical tongues.  I am considering naming this or another new musical composition  “My Other Life”  — dedicated to someone I knew who was really a writer but decided to keep her day job…
Here is some interesting background on the region and its music from Wikipedia.

The music of Western Asia and North Africa spans across a vast region, from Egypt to Iran, and its influences can be felt even further afield. Middle Eastern musicinfluenced (and has been influenced by) the music of Greece and India, as well as Central Asia, Spain, Southern Italy, the Caucasus and the Balkans, as in Byzantine music and Chalga. The various nations of the region include the Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East and North Africa, the Iraqi traditions of Mesopotamia, Iranian traditions of Persia, the varied traditions of Cypriot music, the music of Turkey, traditional Assyrian music, various Jewish traditions, Kurdish music, Berbers of North Africa, and Coptic Christians in Egypt all maintain their own traditions.

Throughout the region, religion has been a common factor in uniting peoples of different languages, cultures and nations. The predominance of Islam allowed a great deal of Arabic and Byzantine influence to spread through the region rapidly from the 7th century onward. The Arabic scale is strongly melodic, based around various maqamat(sing. maqam) or modes (also known as makam in Turkish music). Arabs translated and developed Greek texts and works of music and mastered the musical theory of the music of ancient Greece (i.e. Systema ametabolon, enharmonium, chromatikon, diatonon).[1] This is similar to the dastgah of Persian music. While this originates with classical music, the modal system has filtered down into folk, liturgical and even popular music, with influence from the West. Unlike much western music, Arabic music includes quarter tones halfway between notes, often through the use of stringed instruments (like the oud) or the human voice. Further distinguishing characteristics of Middle Eastern and North African music include very complex rhythmic structures, generally tense vocal tone, and a homophonic texture.

Traditional Egyptian Mizmar Photo by Karim Rezik

 

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Medici Family and Music Patronage

Lorenzo Il Magnifico

So much has been written on the famous art patronage of the Medici’s. But this revolutionary family was equally at home in playing the role of  music patrons. The rulers of Florence for most of the period 1434-1737, they were renowned for their patronage of learning, literature, the arts and science. Musical chapels were maintained at the city’s cathedral and baptistry from 1438; especially influential were Lorenzo the Magnificent (ruled 1449-92) and his son Giovanni, who ruled as Pope Leo X from 1513 and patronized many famous musicians. Duke Cosimo I (ruled 1537-74) reorganized and enlarged the chapels and began the practice of retaining musicians and dancers at court. He was also the first to commission musical festivities for family and state occasions. Intermedi were staged between the acts of plays, and in 1600 the first operas were given: Caccini’s Il rapimento di Cefalo and Peri’s Euridice (the earliest complete extant opera). A later Medici heir apparent, Prince Ferdinando (1663-1713), patronized Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, Handel and others. Art and Music always walk hand in hand as history points out.

Salvbator Mundi

 

Signing off – T. Andrew Schoenberger

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More Music and Pets

The Grasshopper –
“A Tragic Cantata”….. Published in 1878. This is a multi-part song, with engraved graphics all through the sheet music showing insects in human costumes and doing human things. The composer describes it on page 2 as “an ancient tragic theme with modern perversions.” You can’t make this stuff up…….

 

Signing off – Thomas Schoenberger

 

 

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