Explore this website to learn more about the “DaVinci” code, recently uncovered, in Old Main on the Knox College (Galesburg, Il.) campus.  The complete story of the meaning the code and the life of Charles Ulricson, the Swedish American Masonic architect who built this famous landmark, is told in the new book, Chapel in the Sky, by Professor R. Lance Factor. This website offers a partial summary what the code means and what can be found in the complete story of Ulricson’s masterpiece of alchemical architecture.

    Each year on the summer solstice a mysterious shadow triangle, whose hypotenuse is 66.6 feet in length, unites the twin towers of Knox’s Old Main. This event has recently been dubbed, “The Stonehenge of Knox.” The fabled number “666” is only one of many strange signs embedded in the design of Knox’s famous national landmark, known to many as the only extant site of the Lincoln-Douglas debate. A year before Lincoln and Douglas stepped onto the debate platform on October 7, 1858, Charles Ulricson finished his masterpiece by giving it a rich endowment of hidden Masonic symbols and occult geometry. In contemporary jargon Old Main has a DaVinci code.

    Ulricson’s version of the DaVinci code gives Knox’s Old Main a unique appearance.  From opening day, July 7, 1857, onwards observers puzzled over Old Main’s style: was it Gothic or Greek revival? Tudor or Norman? mixed or pure? Something about its combination of legible geometry, its curious niches, its elaborate windows, and its prominent bell tower, with columns and arches, defied classification and bewildered visitors and scholars. 

    Because Knox’s trustees were staunch Anti-Masons, who believed that esoteric geometry was a heresy, an abomination, and a black art called “geomancy,”  Ulricson worked in secret and left no written records of his intentions. His goal was to create a “Main College,” as Old Main was first called, that embodied a spiritual message and purpose. To do so, he infused his masterpiece with privileged numbers, such as the golden ratio and pi,  Masonic symbols, and a Stonehenge-like play of light and shadow. After three years of archival research and a careful measurement of the building’s unique features, the code has been broken. Chapel in the Sky identifies the signs, that have stood in plain view for 150 years, and explains their meanings. 

      Chapel in the Sky is published by Northern Illinois Press, www.niupress.niu.edu.  ISBN 978-0-87580415-6 (815-753-1075) and is available at the Knox College Bookstore, cconolly@knox.edu. (309-341-7066) Galesburg, Il. 61401. The book contains thirty photographs and illustrations, not found on this website.