N the present chapter I propose to show how the painter of the Mona Lisa, the Virgin of the Rocks, and the Saint Anne developed, by what teachings of his predecessors he profited, through what intimate vicissitudes his ideas passed before culminating in the immortal page of Santa Maria delle Grazie. For in this, needless to say, we have no abstract and artificial work, born of the caprice of an artist's imagination, but a page from the book of life itself, a story that has been seen and felt, a drama that has been acted. I devote myself to the "processus, congratulating myself on the fact that my predecessors have confined themselves to the collection of materials, and that I have the pleasure of offering my readers an attempt at a co-ordination of these materials, which, whatever its merit, will at least be novel. FIRST IDEA FOR "THE LAST SUPPER." Before entering on this analysis I would say a few words as to the originality of the great picture, and its destination. A A The word "Cenacolo" has a certain breadth of application in Italian. It is used indifferently for a dining-hall or refectory, for the special "upper room," in which the Saviour ate the Last Supper with his disciples, and for a picture representing that holy rite. The church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, that masterpiece of Lombard architecture as developed under the impulse given it by Bramante, was founded by the Dominicans, who began to build it in 1464, on Gothic lines. The work advanced slowly, and was carried on parsimoniously, until Lodovico il Moro, who took a fancy to the building, gave orders for the reconstruction of the cupola and the apse, causing the foundation stone to be laid in 1492. But it was after the death of Beatrice d'Este that the Milanese prince lavished gifts on his favourite church with special profusion, for it was here he buried his wife and children. Not content with pushing on the work vigorously, he filled the sacristy with plate and costly draperies. The history of The Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie is buried in obscurity. We know not when the masterpiece was begun, when it was finished, nor (in my opinion, the main point of the whole problem) what were the conditions which gave it birth. Let me say at once, and thus make it unnecessary to come back to this question of chronology, that Leonardo was at work upon it in 1497, and that he finished it in that year.1 The refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie forms a very long and fairly high rectangle, vaulted by means of demi-vaults, of which the pendentives sink into the vertical walls, and give rise, at each end of the room, to three demi-lunes. Square-headed windows, seven on the left, four on the right, in the upper part of the wall, give a sufficient light. The room is damp, and shamefully neglected; a layer of bricks does duty for flooring; the dirty green plaster that replaces the marble inlays and tapestries on the walls has scaled off in many places. The visitor 1 Early in June, 1497, Lodovico wrote to one of his agents, telling him to urge Leonardo the Florentine to finish his work for the refectory of Santa Maria, and then to take the decoration of the opposite wall in hand. It would be well, added the Prince, to refer with him to the articles he signed, by which he engaged to finish it within a term specified by himself. (Archivio storico lombardo, 1874, p. 484.)-Cf. Müller-Walde, Jahrbuch der kg. Kunstsammlungen, 1898, p. 114-115.-Leonardo's friend, Luca Pacioli, speaks of the Last Supper as completely finished in his Divina Proportione, concluded in December, 1497 |