About the Book

1The Vatican: An Insider’s View

Conclave 101: The Past, Present, and Future of the Papal Elections

by Greg Tobin

Angels, Demons, and the Next Pope

by Amy Bernstein

Pontiffs Past, Present, and Future

An Interview with Fr. Richard McBrien

Who Is Buried In St. Peter’s Tomb? Beyond the Grave

by Tom Mueller

“Upon This Rock”

by Deirdre Good

The Vatican in the Era of Galileo and Bernini

An Interview with John W. O’Malley

The Church Since Galileo: Problems Then Are Still Problems Now

An Interview with John Dominic Crossan

2Galileo: The Pious Heretic

Galileo Opened the Skies to the Mind of Man

by John Castro

On the Copernican Trail

An Interview with Owen Gingerich

Galileo: Right Message At the Wrong Time

An Interview with Steven Harris

The Myth of Galileo

An Interview with Wade Rowland

Blind Ambition and Sincere Piety

An Interview with Marcelo Gleiser

Avenging Galileo

By Stephan Herrera

3 Of Conspiracies and Conspirators: The Illuminati Illuminated

On the Trail of the Illuminati: A Journalist’s Search for the “Conspiracy That Rules the World”

by George Johnson

The Fact-Fiction Reversal: The Illuminati, the New World Order, and Other Conspiracies

An Interview with Michael Barkun

An Occultist’s Guide to the Assassins and the Illuminati

An Interview with James Wasserman

Secrets of the Tomb: Inside Skull and Bone

An interview with Alexandra Robbins

“. . . I didn’t go looking for the Illuminati; they came looking for me”

An Interview with Robert Anton Wilson

4 Two Windows on the Same Universe? The Science v. Religion Discussion

Leonardo Vetra’s Bookshelf

by Arne de Keijzer

Worshipping in the Church of Einstein, or How I Found Fischbeck’s Rule

by George Johnson

Is There a Need for a Divine Designer?

by Paul Davies

Holy Wars by Neil D. Tyson

“Religion is the mental equivalent of a computer virus”

An Interview with Richard Dawkins

Faith, Spirituality, and the “God Gene”

An Interview with Dean Hamer

A New Approach to an Age-Old Question: Cognitive Science Takes On Religion

by Hannah de Keijzer

Adam v. Atom

By Josh Wolfe

5 Art & Architecture in Robert Langdon’s Rome

A Renowned Bernini Expert Reflects on Dan Brown’s Use of the Baroque Artist in Angels & Demons

by Tod Marder

Bernini and his Angels

An Interview with Mark Weil

The Magical and Mythical in Bernini’s Sculptures

An Interview with George Lechner

The Secrets of the Vatican Library

It Isn’t So Secret After All

by Michael Herrera

A Scholar Visits the Vatican Library

by Tod Marder

Dan Brown and the Symbolism and Meaning of Bernini’s Works

by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona

Rome: City of Angels and Demonic Images

by David Downie

“Let Angels Guide You on Your Lofty Quest”

by Susan Sanders

6 The Science and Technology of Angels & Demons

Death Comes to the Cardinals: A Forensics Lesson Expert on Murder, Mayhem, and Survival

An Interview with Cyril Wecht

Eyeball to Eyeball: The Use of Biometrics in Angels & Demons

by James Carlisle and Jennifer Carlisle

The Technology Toys of Angels & Demons

by David Shugarts

Science as an Evolving Narrative: From Galileo To the Big Bang

An Interview With Marcelo Gleiser

A Day Without Yesterday: Georges Lemaître & the Big Bang

by Mark Midbon.

Antimatter Matters

by Stephan Herrera

Entanglement, the Great Mystery

An Interview with Amir D. Aczel

7 Dan Brown, and the Art of Fictionalizing “Fact”

The Plot Holes and Intriguing Details of Angels & Demons

by David A. Shugarts

What’s in a Name?

by David A. Shugarts

The Secrets of Ambigrams

by David A. Shugarts

Adverbs & Demons: Just How Good is the Former English Teacher’s English?

By George Pullum

Novelistic Metaphysics

by Glenn Erickson

Angels & Demons and the Emerging Literary Genre of Art Fiction

by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona