A Russian art historian has accused Dan Brown of plagiarism in "The Da Vinci Code," just four days after a British court rejected a similar claim.

Mikhail Anikin, a Leonardo Da Vinci expert in the Hermitage Museum's western European art department, said he would give Brown one month to apologize and give up half his revenues from the book or he would take him to court in Russia and the United States to seek all his earnings from the novel.

"When I read the book, I was shocked at its poor quality and because it used my ideas," Anikin said. "This book tells lies about the Church which upset me morally."

Anikin said he had written a book called "Leonardo Da Vinci: Theology In Paint in 2000," in which he argued that the Mona Lisa was an allegory for the Christian Church.

Two years ealier, he said, he had shared his views on the painting with some visiting specialists from the Menil Collection of Houston, Texas, who helped to organize an exhibition at the Hermitage. One, he said, had asked if could pass on the ideas to Brown, describing him as "a friend who wrote detective novels."

Anikin said that he agreed and even gave his theory the name, "The Da Vinci Code," but insisted that he should be credited in any book. He never heard back, he said.

"The Da Vinci Code" was published in 2003 and soon became a global blockbuster.

On Friday, Britain's High Court rejected a claim that Brown had plagiarized the 1982 book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" by Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh.

Anikin said he had heard about that result, but was nonetheless confident of his case.

"I don't see that someone stole their subject, because they wrote their book. It was not their discovery and their ideas (in "The Da Vinci Code"), so I was sure from the start that they would not be successful."

He said he had not spoken out earlier because he had signed an agreement with a Russian magazine giving it exclusive rights to his story.

There was no immediate response from Brown and the Menil Collection said the specialists Anikin named no longer worked at the museum.

Source:China Daily