Question: Which depiction was most challenging for da Vinci in "The Last Supper"?
About the article "Leonardo da Vinci", section "Paintings of the 1490s".

Candidate passages:
Most art historians dispute that Leonardo's famous "The Last Supper" depicts Mary Magdalene beside Jesus. 
In 2005 he participated in a photo shoot for the magazine Soho.
This caused controversy in the Colombian Catholic society since the pictures appeared with Alejandra dressed as Jesus of Nazareth with a naked chest, including a photograph that was reproduced in the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. 
In 2005 White wrote and illustrated "Draw Like da Vinci".
With over 150 images, the book explains the fundamental drawing principles used by Leonardo da Vinci, as well as his tools and techniques such as silverpoint.
The book contains numerous projects for the reader to work through, such as drawing a 'sfumato tomato', portraiture, and drapery.
The author analyses Leonardo's artworks including The Last Supper, Ginevra de' Benci, The Virgin of the Rocks, etc., and reveals the skills behind them.
In 2007 the book was translated into French and published as "Dessiner à la manière de Léonard da Vinci".
The book has also been translated into Danish (Lær at tegne som Da Vinci) and Hungarian (Rajzoljunk úgy, mint Leonardo da Vinci).
Reviews of the English version have appeared on about.com and in "Artists & Illustrators". 
Pietro Perugino's depiction (c. 1490) in Florence shows Judas sitting separately, and is considered on of Perugino's best pieces.
It is located in the convent that housed noble Florentine girls.
Upon its rediscovery was initially attributed to Raphael.
Leonardo da Vinci's depiction (late 1490s) which is considered the first work of High Renaissance art due to its high level of harmony, uses the first theme.
Leonardo balanced the varying emotions of the individual apostles when Jesus stated that one of them would betray him, and portrayed the various attributes of anger, surprise and shock.
It is likely that Leonardo da Vinci was already familiar with Ghirlandaio's Last Supper, as well as that of Castagno, and painted his own Last Supper in a more dramatic form to contrast with the stillness of these works, so that more emotion would be displayed.
Tintoretto's depiction (1590-1592) at the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, also depicts the announcement of the betrayal, and includes secondary characters carrying or taking the dishes from the table.
There are far more numerous secondary figures in the huge painting now called "The Feast in the House of Levi" by Veronese.
This was delivered in 1573 as a "Last Supper" to the Dominicans of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice for their refectory, but Veronese was called before the Inquisition to explain why it contained "buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs and other such scurrilities" as well as extravagant costumes and settings, in what is indeed a fantasy version of a Venetian patrician feast.
Veronese was told that he must change his painting within a three-month period - in fact he simply changed the title to the present one, still an episode from the Gospels, but a less doctrinally central one, and no more was said.
The altarpiece of the main church in Martin Luther's home of Wittenberg is by Lucas Cranach the Elder (with his son and workshop), with a traditional representation of the "Last Supper" in the main panel, except that the apostle having a drink poured is a portrait of Luther, and the server may be one of Cranach.
By the time the painting was installed in 1547, Luther was dead.
Other panels show the Protestant theologians Philipp Melanchthon and Johannes Bugenhagen, pastor of the church, though not in biblical scenes.
Other figures in the panels are probably portraits of figures from the town, now unidentifiable.
Another work, the "Altarpiece of the Reformers" in Dessau, by Lucas Cranach the Younger (1565, see gallery) shows all the apostles except Judas as Protestant churchmen or nobility, and it is now the younger Cranach shown as the cupbearer.
However such works are rare, and Protestant paintings soon reverted to more traditional depictions.
As in many other Northern European works, in Paul Ruben's depiction a dog with a bone can be seen near Judas, perhaps representing greed, or Satan, as the companion of Judas, as in .
Salvador Dalí's depiction combines the typical Christian themes with modern approaches of Surrealism and also includes geometric elements of symmetry and polygonal proportion. 
[[File:Última Cena - Da Vinci 5.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art have been undertaken by artistic masters for centuries, Leonardo da Vinci's late 1490s mural painting in Milan, Italy, being the best-known example.
]]The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion.
The Last Supper is commemorated by Christians especially on Maundy Thursday.
Moreover, the Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist also known as "Holy Communion" or "The Lord's Supper".
The First Epistle to the Corinthians is the earliest known mention of the Last Supper.
The four canonical Gospels all state that the Last Supper took place towards the end of the week, after Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and that Jesus and his Apostles shared a meal shortly before Jesus was crucified at the end of that week.
During the meal Jesus predicts his betrayal by one of the Apostles present, and foretells that before the next morning, Peter will deny knowing him.
The three Synoptic Gospels and the First Epistle to the Corinthians include the account of the institution of the Eucharist in which Jesus takes bread, breaks it and gives it to the Apostles, saying: "This is my body which is given for you".
The Gospel of John does not include this episode, but tells of Jesus washing the feet of the Apostles, giving the new commandment "to love one another as I have loved you", and has a detailed farewell discourse by Jesus, calling the Apostles who follow his teachings "friends and not servants", as he prepares them for his departure.
Scholars have looked to the Last Supper as the source of early Christian Eucharist traditions.
Others see the account of the Last Supper as derived from 1st-century eucharistic practice as described by Paul in the mid-50s.