London, March 15: Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci predicted that the world would end in 4006, a Vatican researcher has claimed.

According to Sabrina Sforza Galitzia, Da Vinci foresaw the end of the world in a “universal flood” which would begin on March 21, 4006 and end on November 1, 4006. “He believed that this would mark a new start for humanity,” she said.
The Vatican researcher came to the conclusion by deciphering the clues which are available in Da Vinci’s Last Supper mural — the lunette above his painting of Jesus Christ with his disciples before crucifixion.
“There is a Da Vinci code — it is just not the one made popular by Dan Brown,” said Ms Galitzia, who studied Da Vinci manuscripts as a researcher at the University of California in Los Angeles and now works in the Vatican archives.
Last year, the Vatican published her study The Last Supper of Leonardo in the Vatican, in which she examined a tapestry of the Last Supper made for King Louis XIII of France, based on Da Vinci’s design for his famous mural.    —PTI