pen·ta·gram Etymology: Greek pentagrammon, from penta- -grammon (akin to gramma letter) -- more at GRAM : a figure of a 5-pointed star usually made with alternate points connected by a continuous line and used as a magic or occult symbol; also : a similar 6-pointed star (as a Solomon's seal) pen·ta·cle Etymology: (assumed) Medieval Latin pentaculum, probably from Greek pente : PENTAGRAM The number 5 was associated with the Babylonian goddess Ishtar and her Roman parallel, Venus, and the symbol for both was the five-pointed star, or pentagram....

A human placed in a circle with outspread arms and legs approximates the five points of a pentagon, and if each point is joined to its second-nearest neighbour a pentagram results.

“And thus,” Leonardo recorded, “without any movement or sign of any mishap, he passed from this life.

And I dissected him to see the cause of so sweet a death.” It was not the first time that Leonardo had sliced into a corpse: by 1508, by his own reckoning, he had conducted more than 10 human dissections. But his study of the cadaver “del vechio” (“of the old man”), as Leonardo called him, rekindled his long-held obsession with the structure of the human body.

Even so, these few paintings, together with a number of sketchbooks crammed with examples of figure drawing (including some of the best drawings of the Renaissance), plus anatomical studies, scientific diagrams, and his views on the techniques and aesthetics of painting, comprise a legacy rivalled only by Michelangelo.

With an established reputation as one of the Best Portrait Artists and also one of the Best History Painters, Leonardo is considered by most art experts to be one of the Best Artists of All Time.

Venus is equated with the Sumarian goddess, Ishtar (Ishhara, Irnini, Inanna) whose symbol is an eight or sixteen point star.

Amongst the Hebrews, the five point symbol was ascribed to Truth and to the five books of the Pentateuch. Pythagorians considered it an emblem of perfection or the symbol of the human being.

The reader is invited to judge for him- or herself whether Prof. Nor has anyone so far pointed a finger at the monks of Grottaferrata. Roland Sauvaget with his brilliant French summary of all objections.Unfortunately, some writers (including Jonathan Knight of the New Scienctist and Frederico di Trocchio in L'Espresso) have interpreted the information that way, and thus indirectly implicated Prof. These pages form the focus of Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man, a new exhibition opening at The Queen’s Gallery in the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh on August 2.“They are the finest illustrations of particular anatomical structures to this day,” says the exhibition’s curator Martin Clayton, who plans to show Leonardo’s drawings alongside modern medical technology including CT and MRI scans in order to demonstrate their far-sighted brilliance.Even so, he was responsible for several masterpieces of Renaissance art, including the Mona Lisa (1503-6, oil on panel, Louvre), one of the greatest portrait paintings; Vitruvian Man (1492), arguably the world's best known drawing; and The Last Supper (1495-8, oil and tempera fresco, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan), one of the best known Biblical paintings of all time.Sadly only a fraction of his art survives (about 15 pictures in all), not least because of his thirst for (often disastrous) experimentation with new paint techniques.