News: Religion, Art, A Nobel winner, I'm all ears

Today's arts news and gossip

The Vatican will publish trial documents of the Order of the Knights Templar, a medieval military group associated with the Crusades and mentioned in The Da Vinci Code. Leather bound copies of the minutes of the proceedings will sell for â‚¬5900 ($8333). The Order, which was founded in 1099 to protect those on pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was disbanded and its leaders burned at stake for heresy in 1314.Â

Since then, the Knights Templar have been regarded as heretics, but in 2001, a professor found a misplaced parchment in the Vatican's archives in which the Order received Papal absolution of heresies at the conclusion of the trial. Reuters has compiled a list of things Knights Templar hopefuls must do. Included is visiting the website of supposedly the largest Knights Templar order in the world.

Though Damien Hirst has made headlines recently for his diamond-crusted skull, he does not hold as much power as Francois Pinault. The French billionaire has again been named the most powerful man in the contemporary art world in ArtReview's "Power 100." Mr Hirst, on the other hand, has jumped up five spots this year to number six. Mr Pinault, the owner of Christie's auctioneers and several brand name labels, made news earlier this year when he succesfully fought the Guggenheim for the plans to transform the Dogana, a Renaissance building in Venice, into a museum by 2009.

Doris Lessing has won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. The English author, most known for her novel, The Golden Notebook, was described by the Swedish Academy as "epicist of the female experience, who
with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided
civilization to scrutiny." In an interview with Newsday, she refused to attribute the success of Notebook to its feminist themes by placing the emphasis on its "energy." Ms Lessing, 87, is the oldest recipient of the literature award in its history.

An Australian artist has implanted a third ear
into his arm. Stelios Arcadious hopes to soon have a microphone
implanted in the ear, which was grown from cells in a lab. The
microphone will be connected to a bluetooth device so "you can listen
to what my ear is hearing," Mr Arcadious said. He had searched 10 years
for a surgeon willing to perform the operation. He originally had hoped
to have the ear implanted on his head, he added. That plan was scrapped when it was deemed too dangerous.