Gnomon in the Saint-Sulpice church.

The obelisk, the meridian brass line on the floor.

Rose Line is a fictional name given to the Paris Meridian and to the sunlight line defining the exact time of Easter on the Gnomon of Saint-Sulpice, marked by a brass strip on the floor of the church in the Priory of Sion mythology, where the two are conflated.

The fictional name Rose Line was also popularized by Dan Brown in his 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code.^[1]

[edit] Priory of Sion Mythology

The 1967 Priory of Sion document Au Pays de la Reine Blanche^[2][3] states that "Rennes-les-Bains is located precisely on the Zero Meridian, which connects Saint-Sulpice in Paris" adding that "the parish of Rennes-les-Bains guards the heart of Roseline", being a reference to Saint Roseline de Villeneuve. Au Pays de la Reine Blanche also referred to "the line of the Zero Meridian, that is to say the red line, in English: 'Rose-line'".^[4] Later in 1978, Pierre Plantard also referred to the "red line of the meridian, the 'Rose-Line'...since Roseline, the Abbess of the 'Celle aux Arcs', celebrates her feast day on 17 January... and her legend is well worth a read".^[5]

The document entitled Le Serpent Rouge - Notes sur Saint-Germain-des-Près et Saint-Sulpice de Paris^[6] conflates the Paris Meridian with a gnomon in the Parisian church of Saint-Sulpice marked in the floor with a brass line, which it calls the "Red Serpent".

Philippe de Chérisey in his document Stone and Paper recounted a story that a Roseline was also the name of his acquaintance: "there was a Roseline I knew who died on 6 August 1967, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, when leaving the zero meridian by car."^[7] Another document by Philippe de Chérisey entitled Circuit,^[8] in Chapter VII, adds the detail that Roseline was killed in a car accident whilst working as a double on the Television film La beauté sur la terre (1968),^[9] a film that also starred Philippe de Chérisey under his stage name of Amédée.^[10] The story about Roseline in Circuit also involves an imaginary character named Charlot who appears frequently throughout Circuit and both characters are patently imaginary beings appearing in one of Philippe de Chérisey's surrealist compositions.

Chapter XIII of Circuit is devoted to the Zero Meridian, with de Chérisey claiming it was established by Till Eulenspiegel (before Jean Picard), listing key sites that it passes through (in a fictional work attributed to Abbé François-Pierre Cauneille). In this chapter Roseline is called 'Fisher Woman', preferring herself to be known as "Di O Nysos, DON" ("dondon" is French slang for "fat woman"), an otherworldly being who organises funerals for the dead who are still living in her new Citroen 2CV (the make of car she was killed in).

[edit] Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code

The term Rose Line has been popularized by Dan Brown in his novel The Da Vinci Code as an alternate name for "the world's first prime meridian",^[1] identified as the Paris Meridian.^[11] Brown's novel also conflates this meridian with a gnomon in the Parisian church of Saint-Sulpice marked in the floor with a brass line,^[12] as did the 1967 Priory Document Le Serpent Rouge - Notes sur Saint-Germain-des-Près et Saint-Sulpice de Paris. The Paris Meridian actually passes about 100 metres east of the gnomon,^[13] which according to author Sharan Newman and a sign in the church was "never called a Rose-Line".^[12][14] A St Sulpice booklet dating from 2000, in the page about the history of the gnomon describes the brass line as "a meridian", it does not use the term Roseline or Rose Line.^[15] Author Paul Murdin describes such sun lines as a "Meridian", or meridiana.^[16]

Brown identified the Paris Meridian with the alleged bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene as well as Rosslyn Chapel, the central part of his novel. Quoting from The Da Vinci Code:

"Rosslyn Chapel's entrance was more modest than Langdon expected. The small wooden door had two iron hinges and a simple oak sign, Roslin. This ancient spelling, Langdon explained to Sophie, derived from the Rose Line meridian on which the chapel sat; or, as Grail academics preferred to believe, from the 'Line of the Rose' — the ancestral lineage of Mary Magdalene..."^[17]

Quoting Mark Oxbrow and Ian Robertson from their book Rosslyn and the Grail:

"Dan Brown simply invented the 'Rose Line' linking Rosslyn and Glastonbury. The name 'Roslin' definitely does not derive from any 'hallowed Rose Line'. It has nothing to do with a 'Rose Bloodline' or a 'Rose Line meridian'. There are many medieval spellings of 'Rosslyn'. 'Roslin' is certainly not the 'original spelling': it is now the most common spelling for the village."^[18]

At the climax of the novel, the protagonist follows the line of Arago medallions to the Louvre museum, where (according to the book) the Paris Meridian passes beneath the so-called Inverted Pyramid in an underground mall in front of the museum. Following the tradition of esoteric interpretations of this meridian, the novel hints that this is the final resting place of the Holy Grail. The fact that the meridian passes near the Inverted Pyramid is also noted in the book Le guide du Paris maçonnique by Raphäel Aurillac, who likewise ascribes some deeper, esoteric significance to this.

In the Louvre area, the meridian line marked by the Arago medallions actually runs through the museum and the great courtyard at a spot considerably to the east of the Inverted Pyramid. The medallions in the museum are behind ticketed access points, while the Inverted Pyramid is located in a public mall next to the museum.

Other landmarks said to lie on the line are Arques and Conques,^[19] the Lady of the Roses cathedral in Rodez, St. Vincent's in Carcassonne, and the Church of St. Stephen's in Bourges, and Rennes-les-Bains.

While Dan Brown presents the Rose Line as "the world's first prime meridian",^[1] the idea of establishing a Prime Meridian dates back to antiquity,^[20] with suggested meridians running through Rhodes or the Canary Islands. When Greenwich was adopted as the universal zero longitude in 1884^[21] (not 1888 as the novel says), it had at least nine rivals besides Paris (Berlin, Cadiz, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Rio, Rome, Saint Petersburg, Stockholm, and Tokyo).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Line

The Pyramid surrounded by the adjacent wings of the Louvre

The Louvre Pyramid (Pyramide du Louvre) is a large glass and metal pyramid, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard (Cour Napoléon) of the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre) in Paris. The large pyramid serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum. Completed in 1989,^[1] it has become a landmark of the city of Paris.

[edit] Design and construction

Inside the Pyramid:the view of the Louvre Museum in Paris from the underground lobby of the Pyramid.

Commissioned by the President of France François Mitterrand in 1984, it was designed by the architect I. M. Pei, who is responsible for the design of the Miho Museum in Japan, and Place Ville-Marie in Montreal, and the National Gallery of Art (East Building) in Washington, D.C. among others. The structure, which was constructed entirely with glass segments, reaches a height of 20.6 metres (about 70 feet); its square base has sides of 35 metres (115 ft). It consists of 603 rhombus-shaped and 70 triangular glass segments.^[2]

The pyramid structure was engineered by Nicolet Chartrand Knoll Ltd. of Montreal (Pyramid structure / Design Consultant) and Rice Francis Ritchie (also known as RFR) of Paris (Pyramid Structure / Construction Phase).^[3]

The pyramid and the underground lobby beneath it were created because of a series of problems with the Louvre's original main entrance, which could no longer handle the enormous number of visitors on an everyday basis. Visitors entering through the pyramid descend into the spacious lobby then re-ascend into the main Louvre buildings.

For design historian Mark Pimlott, "I.M. Pei’s plan distributes people effectively from the central concourse to myriad destinations within its vast subterranean network... the architectonic framework evokes, at gigantic scale, an ancient atrium of a Pompeiian villa; the treatment of the opening above, with its tracery of engineered castings and cables, evokes the atria of corporate office buildings; the busy movement of people from all directions suggests the concourses of rail termini or international airports."

Several other museums have duplicated this concept, most notably the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The construction work on the pyramid base and underground lobby was carried out by the Vinci construction company.^[4]

The large glass pyramids seen at night

The large glass pyramids seen by day

[edit] Controversy

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Maintenance of the Louvre Pyramid

The entry lobby of the Louvre museum beneath the pyramid (taken with a Fisheye lens Nikkor 8mm)

The construction of the pyramid triggered considerable controversy because many people felt that the futuristic edifice looked quite out of place in front of the Louvre Museum with its classical architecture. Certain detractors ascribed a "Pharaonic complex" to Mitterrand. Others lauded the juxtaposition of contrasting architectural styles as a successful merger of the old and the new, the classical and the ultra-modern.

The main pyramid is actually the largest of several glass pyramids that were constructed near the museum, including the downward-pointing La Pyramide Inversée that functions as a skylight in an underground mall in front of the museum. During the design phase, there was a proposal that the design include a spire on the pyramid to simplify window washing. This proposal was eliminated because of objections from I. M. Pei.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Urban legend of 666 panes

It has been claimed by some that the glass panes in the Louvre Pyramid number exactly 666, "the number of the beast", often associated with Satan. Dominique Stezepfandt's book François Mitterrand, Grand Architecte de l'Univers declares that "the pyramid is dedicated to a power described as the Beast in the Book of Revelation (...) The entire structure is based on the number 6."

The story of the 666 panes originated in the 1980s, when the official brochure published during construction did indeed cite this number (even twice, though a few pages earlier the total number of panes was given as 672 instead). The number 666 was also mentioned in various newspapers. The Louvre museum however states that the finished pyramid contains 673 glass panes (603 rhombi and 70 triangles).^[5] A higher figure was obtained by David A. Shugarts, who reports that the pyramid contains 689 pieces of glass.^[6] Shugarts obtained the figure from the offices of I. M. Pei.

Elementary math allows for easy counting of the panes: each of the three sides of the pyramid without an entrance has 18 triangular panes and 17 rows of rhombic ones arranged in a triangle, thus giving rhombic panes (171 panes total). The side with the entrance, however, has 11 panes less (9 rhombic, 2 triangular), so the whole pyramid consists of rhombi and triangles, 673 panes total. However, if the entrance was designed to be six panes wide at the base (just as it is in reality) and four (instead of two) panes high, the number of panes would be indeed 666 (598 rhombi and 68 triangles).

The myth resurfaced in 2003, when Dan Brown incorporated it in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, in which the protagonist reflects that "this pyramid, at President Mitterrand's explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass - a bizarre request that had always been a hot topic among conspiracy buffs who claimed 666 was the number of Satan".^[7] However, David A. Shugarts reports that according to a spokeswoman of the offices of I. M. Pei, the French President never specified the number of panes to be used in the pyramid. Noting how the 666 rumor circulated in some French newspapers in the mid-1980s, she commented: "If you only found those old articles and didn't do any deeper fact checking, and were extremely credulous, you might believe the 666 story".^[8]