Even before the book’s publication Brown had pointed at Dürer in two of the clues offered simultaneously to readers on Facebook and Twitter. Clue #22 was “His subjects are the first couple, horned ungulate, blessed Jerome.” Many eager puzzle-solvers realized this was a veiled reference to Dürer. The first couple was Adam and Eve, engraved and painted by the artist; he also did an engraving of a Rhinoceros, and one of St. Jerome who translated the Bible into Latin. On the box of the golden pyramid, Langdon discovers the image of 1514, above a capital letter “A” that sits above and encloses the letter “D.” Langdon recognizes this as an unmistakable reference to a name. But he keeps the secret for several chapters until revealing it to be the signature of Albrecht Dürer that graces the artist’s engraving Melencolia I. With no time to waste, Katherine suggests they access it in the online catalogue of digital collections at the Library of Congress. The search reveals a number of thumb-nail images, including one for Melencolia I. A recent search of the Library of Congress catalogue reveals no such print in their collection. Fortunately the National Gallery of Art has several copies and provides Internet access to a print where each section can be viewed in detail. The engraving embodies a magic square that will be discussed in some detail later, as well as the signature block in the lower right-hand corner that had attracted Langdon’s attention. But the entire engraving fits into what is called “Mystic Christianity—a fusion of early Christianity, alchemy, astrology and science” (257).
In 1514 Albrecht Dürer created this engraving that contains its title and the year of its creation. It is one of the most studied works of art in the Western world. Erwin Panofsky, considered by many the foremost authority on the work, claims in his The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer (1943) that it “is in a sense a spiritual self-portrait of Albrecht Dürer.” Dürer had visited Florence and was acquainted with the art of Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci. The title, Melencolia I, is likely related to the phrase used by one of the major esoteric writers of the Middle Ages, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, whose Of Occult Philosophy was written in 1510 and published in 1531. In spite of countless attempts at interpretation, the work continues to exhibit new possibilities. In addition to having been used in Of Occult Philosophy and a misspelling in any of the languages Dürer knew, Melencolia could be read as an anagram for the Latin Limen coela, or “threshold to heaven.”
Scholars have interpreted the images and symbols to contain some secret wisdom. The title itself has been interpreted as an example of gematria, assigning numbers to letters to reveal hidden correspondences. If one assigns the numeral 1 to the letter A, 2 to B etc., then
MELENCOLIA EINS =
(13+5+12+5+14+3+15+12+9+1)+(5+9+14+19) = 136
and ALBRECHT DVRER =
(1+12+2+18+5+3+8+20)+(4+22+18+5+18) = 136.
Melencolia I, engraving by Albrecht Dürer (1514)
(Note the Latin letter V replaces the letter U in the artist’s name.)
The intriguing magic square in the engraving is a four-by-four set of the numbers from 1 to 16, where each row and column adds up to 34, related in some Hermetic texts to the planet Jupiter. The bottom row contains the numbers 4-15-14-1, which some argue is the date (1514) and a code for the letters A=1 and D=4 for Albrecht Dürer.
Mark Koltko-Rivera connects the paintings to the Masonic tradition, although Freemasonry Lodges trace their formal beginnings to the year 1717, two centuries after the work itself. He focuses our attention on the objects such as the tools of a carpenter (Jesus was the son of a carpenter), the compasses, the polished stone, and even the dog. The ladder is perceived as Jacob’s ladder (see Genesis 28:10-22), a symbol from the lecture of the first degree of Freemasonry.
MELENCOLIA I AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/timage_f?object=6640&image=3653&c=
ALBRECHT DÜRER, THE COMPLETE WORKS
www.albrecht-durer.org
DAVID BOWMAN “MELENCOLIA I.”
www.aiwaz.net/Melencolia-I/a14
DAVID FINKELSTEIN “MELENCOLIA I.”
www.physics.gatech.edu/people/faculty/finkelstein/MELEN COLIAchapter.pdf
MARK KOLTKO-RIVERA “MASONIC SYMBOLS IN DURER’S “MELENCOLIA I.”
lostsymboltweets.blogspot.com/2009/06/9th-tweet-albrecht-durer.html
