The Church and Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, the home of Leonardo's Last Supper, has been listed as part of UNESCO's Worldwide Heritage since 1980 and is an exceptional masterpiece of human creativity and genius.
Bramante's complex and architecture in the church and the Leonardo's Last Supper in the Refectory are symbolic of Milan's Humanistic and Renaissance past, constituting a great opus whose spatial and compositive definition announced a new era in the history of art.
The "Cenacolo" is the name commonly given to the ambient where Leonardo painted his famous "Last Supper". The "Cenacolo" is the name commonly given to the ambient where Leonardo painted his famous "Last Supper": the Refectory in the Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, an exceptional artistic masterpiece of Renaissance Milan, built in the mid-15th century.
The rectangular Refectory hall, closed by lunette vaults, is decorated by two enormous paintings, chosen in consideration of the final use of the room and the religious traditions of the Dominican order: apart from the Last Supper there is also the "Crucifixion" by Donato Montorfano, painted respectively on the northern wall and the southern wall. The two great scenes are linked by a painted frieze of plant garlands, which support pages of Bible quotations that inspire monastic life. Above there are portraits of monks and saints in trompe l'oeil architecture oculi, also attributed to Donato Montorfano, but now sadly incomplete because of the damage caused by the bombings of 1943 that completely destroyed the vault and the eastern wall, whilst the wall with the Last Supper was saved simply because of the foresight of sandbagging it.
Originally, and before Leonardo's intervention, this ambient was completely different: it was perfectly symmetrical with sixteen windows, eight per wall, aligned with the lunettes, above the trabeation, and it is supposed that Leonardo himself imposed the rearrangement of the windows so that he could paint the Last Supper there.
The Last Supper was painted in the ambit of the extensive artistic and cultural revival that from 1490 involved Milan, under the patronage of Ludovico Sforza - "il Moro". The Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie was fully involved and in 1495, when Donato Montorfano was completing his Crucifixion for the Refectory, Leonardo was commissioned by the Duke to decorate the facing wall with a Last Supper. The commission is documented by the coats of arms that appear within plant garlands in the four lunettes above the "Supper" and are a reminder of the names of Ludovico, Beatrice and their children.
The Last Supper was quite slow in evolving despite the urgings of Ludovico Sforza and the prior. It actually took Leonardo about four years (1494-1498) with the dry or tempera technique he had decided to use, as if it had been a great tablet (4.60x8.80m). First of all he decided not to apply the consolidated fresco technique, which offered assurances for conservation, but was time-consuming to spread. What Leonardo required was the utmost freedom during the executive stage in order to correct, modify and achieve special color effects. Moreover, the fresco technique was irreconcilable with his bizarre temperament that led him to alternate periods of intense activity with others of total rest, as related by Matteo Bandello, who was a guest of the convent fathers and often saw Leonardo at work.
Although The Last Supper was a traditional theme used to decorate convent refectories, especially in Florence (memorable are those by Taddeo Gaddi, Beato Angelico, Andrea del Castagno and Ghirlandaio), Leonardo presented the subject in a completely innovative form. Not only did he make drastic modifications to the layout of the scene, but also the true novelty was the astounding realism with which he recounted this episode from the Gospels.
Where & When
Piazza
S. Maria delle Grazie 2
Corso Magenta
20123 Milano
Public transportation
MM1 Conciliazione
MM1, MM2 Cadorna
Tram 20-24-29-30
Reservation required
tel +39 02 89421146
www.cenacolovinciano.org
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