Since we are in Milan, we might as well go look at THAT famous wall painting.
We had a bite to eat for breakfast and walked over to the Santa Maria delle Grazie. This church is attached to a monastry. In the dining hall of the monastery is where Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper.
The whole church is a UNESCO site, but what is left of the painting now is so fragile that we had to go through three air-locks to get in. The group was also only allowed to be in there for 15 minutes exactly. Then two more airlocks to get back out.
In the Last Supper, done between 1494 and 1498 on the north wall of the refectory of the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent, Leonardo renewed the traditional imagery of the Cenacle, choosing the dramatic moment of doubt, when it is not yet known who will betray Christ and the souls of the apostles are deeply shaken. Не also renewed the painterly composition and, with an extraordinary use of perspective, created a sense of continuity between the real space and the painting space.
The Last Supper was not done with the traditional technique of “good fresco”; on the dry wall Leonardo experimented with a technique similar to that used for painting on wood, ideal to get the best rendering of chiaroscuro effects and to allow slow and meditated progression suited to making changes. The work also proved extremely fragile because of unfavourable environmental conditions: a few years after completion it already showed signs of the ineluctable process of deterioration.
In 1799, under the laws of the Cisalpine Republic, the convent was suppressed and the Cenacle used by the Napoleonic army as a stable and barn.
Since 1934 the Cenacle has been a state museum, while the convent has gone to the Dominican fathers. In 1943, during World War Two, a bomb caused the collapse of the ceiling and east wall of the refectory; the Last Supper was saved thanks to the protection put in place at the beginning of the war and prompt reconstruction work.
Over the centuries the fragility of the Last Supper has made restoration work necessary several times, often proving harmful. The last restoration (1978-1999) removed layers of colour, glue and materials added in previous restoration work, recovered the painting fragments by Leonardo. To guarantee its conservation a sophisticated protection system safeguards the painting against big variations in temperature, dust and polluting agents.
He was supposed to also paint this wall but took so long with the other one that they asked Giovanni Donato to do it.
