If you haven't finished The Da Vinci Code...

... you might want to skip this posting...

One plot point in The Da Vinci Code that was kind of interesting to me was the claim that there was a woman at the table in Da Vinci's Last Supper. I thought the author was taking 'poetic license' and exaggerating... then I went out on the web and found a picture, and whoa! he's right.

If you don't believe me, go here: link. This, if you please, is supposed to be 'John'. Click here to see the whole thing.

Now we're talking about Leonardo here. He can clearly paint unambiguously male figures. (Well, the Christ portrait here is a little femmie, or at least 'pretty' a la the young Elvis - check out the lips.)

What I want to know is what kind of conversation this occasioned contemporaneously. Patron: "uh, Leo... what's the chick doing in your painting?" Leo: "That's no chick, that's John." Patron (backing slowly away): "Okay... John... sure."

So any art historians out there care to chime in? How did he get away with calling this kid sister of Mona Lisa 'John' for so long?