This famous picture by Leonardo Da Vinci is cleverly used by Dan Brown to explain the background of his plot in the novel and help the reader connect to the story with real word connections. Teabing, while explaining the back story of the feminine. says this picture is the secret to the Holy Grail and makes references to the symbols and different objects in the painting and explains their meaning. This all connects the real world and the pages in the novel and makes the reading experience much more interesting.
When I first saw that picture after Langdon described that the person to the left of Jesus was a woman, I was floored. I, like Sophie, had believed that the picture had depicted 13 men, so learning that the "man" to the left of Jesus was actually a woman was shocking. It was cool to undergo the same thought process as Sophie. You're right that seeing this picture in the real world does make the reading much more interesting.
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