Q: Is Mary Magdalene really sitting to the right of Jesus in Da Vinci's Last Supper? A: No. Da Vinci's rendition of the Apostle John is to Jesus' right.
Page 252 of the Da Vinci Code (Brown, D., 2004) states that Da Vinci painted Mary Magdalene to Jesus' right in his painting, "The Last Supper," revealing clues to Christianity's darkest secret. The first thing to mention is that Leonardo Da Vinci was an artist who lived from 1452-1519 - more than 1400 years after the birth of Christ (Wikipedia, 2006). Da Vinci was not alive to witness the "Last Supper" first-hand, so all we have is his "artist's rendition" of what he thought it may have looked like. Da Vinci was also not a part of the Priory of Sion and as such, he couldn't have painted the hidden clues that the Da Vinci Code asserts the Priory was protecting.
The Da Vinci Code strongly asserts that it was in-fact Mary Magdalene sitting to the right of Jesus and that the knife in Peter's hand was a threatening gesture towards her (Brown, D., 2004, p. 259). More-likely, the knife in Peter's hand was painted to signify the knife that he would later use in the Garden of Gethsemane, to cut off the soldier's ear when Jesus was arrested (John 18:10).
Lastly, if the person to Jesus' right was not the Apostle John, but instead Mary Magdalene...then where was John? Jesus had 12 disciples and Da Vinci painted exactly twelve disciples in his masterpiece.
To view a zoomable version of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper, click the link below:
http://milano.arounder.com/da_vinci_last_supper/fullscreen.html
References:
Brown, D. (2004). The Da Vinci Code, Special Illustrated Edition. (p. 252, 259). New York, NY: Doubleday.
Wikipedia.com. (2006). Leonardo da Vinci. Retrieved May 26, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_vinci