Reservations are required, often a month or more in advance. But, being us, we arrived at the Church of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan, home of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" just after eight this foggy and snowy morning with only a hope and a smile. We must have charmed their pants off because twenty minutes later we, and 23 Chinese tourists, had our 15 minutes to view Leonardo's much restored masterpiece.
Fifteenth Century frescoes were usually painted quickly. The full-size "cartoon" was copied onto wet plaster and the paint had to be applied before the plaster set. Leonardo, who lived in Milan for 20 years, had successfully created small frescoes with a new technique that allowed him to spend as much time as he needed for his art. When he was commissioned by the Sforza family, Milan's answer to the Medici, he used the same method, taking four years to complete the giant fresco. Not too long after he finished, the vivid colors began to fade. The heat required to dry his paints had evidently melted the was used in fixing the surface. His masterpiece was ruined. Luckily, one of his students was commissioned to make a full size oil-on-canvas reproduction that hangs today in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. This reproduction not only shows the true colors of the original, it was used as a model in the last of the restorations. What we saw today gives the sense of what Leonardo was trying to create and an insight into his talent.
All that was needed to dispell any doubt about Leonardo's genius was a visit to the nearby Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and the display of 22 pages from his notebook showing sketches of some of his many inventions and designs. The Pinacoteca also houses wonderful paintings by Titian, Botticelli, and Carrivagio plus the cartoon of Raphael's "School of Athens." We hope to see the fresco at the Vatican Museum, complete with Michelangelo, absent in the cartoon, but added by Raphael on the fresco.
