L'Ultima Cena

The Last Supper
From Left to Right: Bartholomew, James, Andrew, Judas, Peter, John, Jesus, Thomas, James the Greater, Phillip, Matthew, Thaddeus, Simon

View of the entire refectory
One of the coolest things I’ve done in Italy and by far my favorite piece of art I’ve seen is Leonardo da Vinci’s "The Last Supper”. I went to Florence and Milan with my da Vinci class to see three of his paintings in the Uffizi Gallery (Florence) and The Last Supper, or L’Ultima Cena, in Milan. The Last Supper is located in Santa Maria della Grazie church and from the outside you would never be able to tell that the church holds such a priceless work of art. The front part of the church has been totally renovated, so it looks pretty modern, but plain. The painting is in the refectory of the church, which was the dining room of lords and dukes of Milan. Only groups of 15 can go in at a time to keep a constant temperature and the room is totally dark except for the dim lighting on the painting. Pictures are strictly prohibited and a guard in the room will yell at you if you even breathe too heavy. When I walked in I was taken away by the size of the painting. Before this class I thought it was small and framed. It’s actually about 15ft. x 30ft and is painted across an entire end wall. It was almost eerie standing in a dark, silent room with this huge painting you’ve seen a million times in pictures and books. As awesome as it was, the painting is in pretty bad shape. Many faces are too blurry to see any features and all of the legs underneath the table are barely visible. Da Vinci loved to experiment with different mediums, using mixtures of varnish, oil, and sometimes even vegetable juices or egg yolks. These mediums, combined with the dampness of the church walls, explain why the painting is in such poor condition. Just having finished a 20 year cleaning in 1999, the painting should last for a long, long time.

Some interesting info about The Last Supper:

- The scene captures the moment after Jesus tells the disciples that one of them would betray him. Most of the disciples are reacting with disbelief, with questioning looks toward each other and Jesus.
- James the Greater has a finger up in the air seeming to say “One of us?!” One finger pointed upward is almost a trademark of da Vinci- he used this pose in many paintings.
- Peter holds a knife, symbolizing how he cut off a soldier’s ear during Jesus’s arrest.
- Judas is sitting lowest at the table and is painted darker than the rest of the disciples. He is holding a small bag representing the silver given to him for betraying Jesus.
- Judas’s elbow is knocking over a salt shaker. This is known as bad luck and foreshadows his death.
- Da Vinci usually had a “pyramidal” theme to his paintings. In The Last Supper, all the disciples are in groups of three (possibly signifying the Holy Trinity) and Christ is framed by the light from the window in the center.
- John sits to Jesus’s right and although he may look feminine, the figure is not Mary Magdalene! Da Vinci usually painted people to look very androgynous.
- It was painted in 1497, but by 1556 it was already so badly suffering that it was described looking like ‘nothing but a muddle of blots’.

- The painting survived a WWII air raid bombing. Church officials sandbagged the entire wall- the wall closest to the painting collapsed.
- It has gone through 5 cleanings and restorations, the first being in 1726. The most recent cleaning that lasted for 20 years removed all other artists’ work. All that remains now is da Vinci’s original painting.