The Da Vinci Code

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Spoiler warning: this section covers the whole plot, including the ending. The novel has more than one hundred very short chapters, so this guide groups them into eight parts.

Part 1: The Murder at the Louvre (Prologue)

In the Louvre's Grand Gallery, curator Jacques Saunière is shot by Silas, an albino monk who takes orders from a man called the Teacher. Saunière gives Silas a false answer about where a great secret is hidden, then slowly dies. Before he does, he arranges his body in the pose of Leonardo's Vitruvian Man and leaves a coded message on the floor. Why it matters: the victim builds the first puzzle himself, so every later clue is his last attempt to pass something on to someone he trusts.

Part 2: A Suspect in Paris

Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor in Paris for a lecture, is called to the Louvre by Captain Bezu Fache. Fache shows him the body and the message, which ends with the line “Find Robert Langdon.” Langdon slowly understands that he is the main suspect. Police cryptologist Sophie Neveu, who is Saunière's granddaughter, warns him and helps read the scrambled words, which rearrange into a reference to the Mona Lisa. Why it matters: two near-strangers share one goal, to learn what Saunière wanted them to find, and they must stay ahead of the police.

Part 3: The Escape and the Key

Sophie tells Langdon that the police have hidden a tracking device on him. They get rid of it and slip out of the Louvre. Behind Leonardo's painting Madonna of the Rocks they find a key stamped with a fleur-de-lis and the seal of the Priory of Sion, a secret society in the story. Why it matters: the key is the first physical object in the chase, and it points them away from the museum toward a place where Saunière stored something for them.

Part 4: A Swiss Bank and a Locked Cylinder

The key opens a safe-deposit box at the Paris branch of a Swiss bank. The account number turns out to be the numbers from the floor, once Langdon puts them back into Fibonacci order. Inside is a rosewood box holding a cryptex, a cylinder with lettered rings that must be lined up to spell a five-letter password. Forcing it open would break a vial of vinegar and dissolve the scroll inside. Bank manager André Vernet first helps the pair escape in an armoured truck, but later tries to take the box back. Why it matters: the cryptex is now the heart of the story, and nobody can open it by force.

Part 5: Château Villette and the Grail Theory

Langdon and Sophie go to the home of Sir Leigh Teabing, a wealthy British historian who has spent his life searching for the Holy Grail. Teabing explains the novel's central claim: the Grail is not a cup but a symbol for Mary Magdalene and the bloodline of her child with Jesus, a truth the Church supposedly hid. He points to Leonardo's Last Supper as evidence. Historians reject these claims, but inside the story they raise the stakes. Why it matters: this is the idea that makes the secret dangerous to powerful institutions.

Part 6: To England, and the Second Cryptex

On Teabing's private plane to England, the group works through the clues and opens the first cryptex with the word SOFIA, which means wisdom in Greek and echoes Sophie's name. Inside is a second, smaller cryptex and a poem about a knight buried in London. They land in England and search for the tomb the poem describes. Why it matters: each solved puzzle narrows the search, and the poem finally points to one particular place.

Part 7: Newton's Tomb

The poem's knight is Sir Isaac Newton, buried in Westminster Abbey. There Teabing shows that he is the Teacher who has been directing Silas, because he wants the Grail's proof for himself. He forces Langdon at gunpoint to open the second cryptex. Langdon works out that the five-letter password is APPLE, opens it secretly and takes out what is inside. Teabing is arrested, and Fache accepts that Langdon is innocent. Meanwhile Silas, hiding from the police, accidentally wounds Bishop Aringarosa, who survives, and Silas is later found dead of a gunshot. Why it matters: the friendly expert turns out to be the enemy, and the puzzle is solved by knowledge rather than force.

Part 8: Rosslyn Chapel and the Louvre

The last clue leads to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. There Sophie meets a brother and a grandmother she had thought were lost to her. They tell her that her family descends from Jesus and Mary Magdalene and that it has been protected for centuries. Langdon then understands where the Grail really lies: beneath the small pyramid under the Louvre's inverted glass pyramid, on the line the book calls the Rose Line. He kneels there. Why it matters: the chase ends where it began, and the answer is a place, a family and a question rather than an object.

Characters

• Robert Langdon: a Harvard professor of religious symbology. He reads symbols and art history with ease and explains them patiently. He is calm under pressure, though he is afraid of enclosed spaces, and he becomes the reader's guide through the puzzles.
• Sophie Neveu: a police cryptologist and Saunière's granddaughter. Her grandfather taught her word games as a child. She carries old hurt about their broken relationship, and she joins Langdon to learn what he left behind.
• Jacques Saunière: curator of the Louvre and leader of the Priory of Sion in the story. He is killed in the first scene, yet the codes he leaves behind drive the whole plot. He also raised Sophie.
• Leigh Teabing: a British Grail researcher who walks with crutches. He freely shares his knowledge of history and religion with Langdon and Sophie, but he hides a second identity that changes the story.
• Silas: an albino monk who follows the Teacher's orders. He feels a deep debt to the bishop who took him in, and he punishes his own body as part of his faith. He is the one who shoots Saunière.
• Bezu Fache: a captain of the Paris police who is certain Langdon is the killer. He is driven and stubborn, and his certainty keeps the heroes on the run for most of the book.
• Manuel Aringarosa: a bishop who leads Opus Dei and has looked after Silas. He joins the Teacher's plan out of worry for his organisation's place in the Church.
• André Vernet: manager of the Paris branch of the bank that holds Saunière's box. He wants to protect a client's property, and his loyalty shifts as events unfold.

Writing about this book

A good report on this novel picks one question and follows it. The book gives you plenty to choose from, and you do not need to agree with its claims to write well about it.

• The line “history is always written by the winners” is easy to test. Find a real example from your own history lessons and ask whose story was told and whose was left out.
• Sort the novel's claims into three piles: real places and artworks, claims historians support, and claims the author invented. Checking each pile in a library or an encyclopedia is a strong way to show your own thinking.
• Think about how knowledge changes what you see. A painting looks different once you know what symbols to look for. Describe one scene where this happens.
• Look at Sophie and her grandfather. What does the story say about secrets kept out of love?

Start with one scene that stayed with you and say what you thought as you read it. Then give at least one reason for your view, whether you agree with the book or not. Questions, not conclusions, are what teachers usually want to read.