John’s art changed the way I think about symmetry, symbols, and art – he looks at from different perspectives. He is most famous for his ability to create “ambigrams” – words that read the same both right side up and up side down (see, for example, his book Wordplay. John is an artist and philosopher, a close friend of my father and, I think, one of our true geniuses. In the early 1990’s, I first saw the art work of John Langdon.

Robert Langdon is an amalgam of many people I admire. The following is excerpted from Dan Brown’s Witness Statement to the British High Court – in which the American author speaks about his inspiration and research for his bestselling novels, including The DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons.

With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.Įmbarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.Īn explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.You had to have a quick and sharp eye to catch my ambigrams in the 2009 Angels & Demons movie, but the Sony people put them to great advantage in the promotion of the film. Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy - the Catholic Church. When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol - seared into the chest of a murdered physicist - he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati.the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown