Here comes another one.

Russian art historian Mikhail Anikin claims that The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown plagiarized his hypothesis that Leonardo Da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa was a coded theological message. Anikin believes that Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is an allegory of the Christian Church's history, and that the portrait's face is actually the combined images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

Anikin is an art historian and Da Vinci specialist working at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. He claims that in 1998 he shared his theory with colleagues.

One of the group was interested in the idea and asked to share the theory with a "detective book author that he knew," Anikin told Agence France-Press.

Anikin says he specified that he must be attributed if the author used the idea in a future book.

Anikin also says that he outlined his theory in his 2000 book Leonardo Da Vinci: Theology in Paint, but that has not been confirmed, as no one has so far bothered to read the book.

I hereby proclaim to every writer in the world, just in case you ever get amazingly wealthy and rich: If you ever write a book, play, or screenplay that mentions anything I've ever said, wrote or thought about, whether you've heard or read it or not, you must specify that I told you, whether it's true or not. Fair enough?

— Widow's Son

Dan Brown | Da Vinci Code | Mikhail Anikin | Plagiarism