Leonardo's wall dinner began dying within decades
Painted about 1495–1498 in Milan's Santa Maria delle Grazie, The Last Supper freezes the instant after Jesus says a betrayer sits among the Twelve. Leonardo chose tempera on sealed stone instead of true fresco—and the mural started flaking almost at once.
Leonardo da Vinci's mural, about 460 by 880 centimeters, covers an end wall of the convent dining hall in Milan. Ludovico Sforza commissioned it amid renovations meant to turn the church into a family mausoleum. The scene follows John's Gospel: Jesus has just announced betrayal. Perspective lines converge on Christ's face; diners sit on one side so none turns his back to the viewer. Judas leans into shadow with a money bag and tipped salt cellar, rather than being isolated across the table as earlier artists often did. A mid-sixteenth-century copy helped identify all twelve apostles in groups of three.
Oil-loving Leonardo rejected daily fresco sections. He sealed stone with gesso, pitch, and mastic, laid white lead, then painted tempera so he could revise slowly and push chiaroscuro. A 1497 document suggests near completion; a complaining prior allegedly heard Leonardo threaten to use the prior's face for Judas if no villainous model appeared. Friend Luca Pacioli called the work a symbol of man's burning desire for salvation. Bernardo Zenale reportedly urged leaving Christ's face unfinished because the Jameses already looked too lovely to surpass.
Sforza's hasty rubble-filled wall held moisture. Finished by 9 February 1498, the painting soon deteriorated; by 1517 it flaked, and by 1556 Vasari saw a muddle of blots. A doorway cut through it in 1652; a protective curtain later trapped damp and scratched paint. Restorations from 1726 onward repeatedly overpainted and cleaned; French troops in 1796 used the refectory as armory and stable and scratched apostles' eyes. Little original surface survives despite a campaign finished in 1999. Early full-size copies by Giampietrino and Cesare da Sesto preserve details the wall lost.
Source: The Last Supper (Leonardo)
