It’s quite bizarre isn’t it that Dan Brown’s novel should cause such a stir? It’s not even named properly. “Da Vinci” is not how the great polymath was known, no one knows his surname or whether he was known as anything but “Leonardo” in his lifetime. The “Da Vinci” monicker was tacked on later, simply because he came from Vinci, Italy.
Anyway, Brown is currently embroiled in a legal debacle with the authors of another book (The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail) who claim that he plagiarised their purportedly non-fictional history of the alleged marriage to Mary Magdelene of Jesus Christ and the continuation of his blood line to modern times. Quite bizarre. It’s like someone trying to sue Michael Crichton for writing about dinosaurs (there must be thousands of non-fiction authors holding their breath right now), or nanotechnology, or global warming or emergency rooms…
As far as I recall, Brown cites the HB&HG in his book, so I’m not even sure how it could possibly be plagiarism, but then that’s English law for you.
The really odd (I don’t think) thing about this whole legal case is that both the dVC and the HB&HG are actually published by the same publisher. And, could it also be pure coincidence that it’s reached the courts in the same month as the film of dVC hits the big screens in the UK? I suspect not. Either way, the plot is pretentious and puerile and I really wish I hadn’t bothered reading the book. I can only recommend that if you haven’t yet, don’t bother. Jurassic Park is more likey, to be honest.