As someone with an interest in the Knights Templar, my attention was drawn some years ago to Leonardo Da Vinci via the rather sensational book and film The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

During his talk at the Wells Festival of Literature, leading Leonardo Da Vinci expert Martin Kemp dismissed Brown's work for its historical accuracy, and rightly so, but he did touch on a very interesting point about the murky world of Da Vinci.

There are many people who believe all sorts of dubious facts about Da Vinci, and who doubt the authenticity on some works believed to be by the genius painter, and Kemp showed the audience some of the hate mail he had received, despite him being one of the best people to be an expert as emeritus professor of the history of art at the University of Oxford.

Indeed, he even fielded a rather aggressive question from a member of the audience, who clearly was in a different camp to Kemp when it came to views on certain Da Vinci works.

However, Kemp was superb in his answer, as indeed he was in the rest of the talk, that was a fascinating insight into the studies of Da Vinci that went into enough depth for the aficionado while still being accessible to the mere enthusiast.

One of the most interesting points for me was that Da Vinci studied the human anatomy so closely, and did so many analytical drawings, so he could design the people in his paintings, such as the Last Supper, in as realistic a way as possible.

Kemp talked about a few paintings in detail, but allegedly the most noteworthy one in which he is an expert is the Salvator Mundi, the most expensive painting in the world.

The image that depicts Christ was originally thought to be created by a student of Da Vinci, but Kemp was part of a team who re-evaluated the work, and concluded that it was, indeed, from the Italian master himself.

This led to the painting to be sold for more than £350 million, being bought by the Abu Dhabi branch of the Louvre.

However, it has not been seen since, and there are all sorts of rumours about its whereabouts, something that Kemp says is a shame as it would fit perfectly into the Abu Dhabi Louvre.

Clearly the world of studying and evaluating works by Leonardo Da Vinci is intriguing, exciting and event slightly dangerous, but Martin Kemp brought the world to life in his talk, and I feel we could have sat there for twice as long hearing about it all.