The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-12
The Last supper, by Leonardo
Da Xinci.

The great workers of the Middle Ages were
not merely the engineers of new lines of
thought; they were also the brawny naviga-
tors who, with their own hands, hewd and
dug. Leonardo da Vinci seems to have
shared the versatility of these men. He was
not only accomplished in all knightly exer-
cises, although merely the son ola Florentine
notary, but he was also an architect sculptor,
musician, improvisatore, painter and poet.
He was an engineer, with bold schemes for
canal between Florence and Pisa; he wrote
on anatomy, mathematics, perspective, and
mechanics; he was greatin designsfor fortifioa-
tions; heinvented machines to facilitate swim
ming. Leonardo was peculiarly unfortunate, for
his greatest work almost Immediately began
to perish, and the Gascon crossbowmen in
the French invasion made target of the
model of his great statue to the first Sforza.
Leonardo's greatest work, ''The Last Sup
per, was painted for the end wall of the
refectory of the Dominican convent of Santa
Maria della Grazie at Milan, painted before
1899. From the beginning all went wrong
with this picture, that seemed projected
under evil stars, The convent was damp
and ill-built, the wall dangerously placed
between the kitchen and the refectory. In
1900 an inundation laid the chamber under
water for some time; and one who saw
the picture in 1912 spoke of it as thing
of the past In 1862 door was broken
through under the figure of Our Saviour,
which destroyed the feet. In 1925 a miser-
able bungler, as conceited as he was imbe-
cile, painted it all over. In 1770 fool
named Mazza retouched all but three heads.
This was the man Barry found at work, to
bis horror and indignation. Before this, the
unhappy picture had been whitewashed.
In 1896 Napoleon gave express orders to
respect the sacred room; but later gene
rails turned it into stable and hay depot.
Luckily the great mans sketches for these
pictures are still extant; the head of the
Saviour is in the Gallery at Milan, on a soiled
and creased bit of paper. Ten studies for
heads of the Apostles are preserved at the
Hague, and three more are in England. Of
this great picture of the Last Supper there
are several anecdotes extant. The Prior, it is
said, complained to the Pope of Leonardo's
delay in completing the work, especially the
heads of Our Saviour and of Judas. The pain
ter, summoned to account for his tardiness,
replied that he despaired of attaining his ideal
of the tender beauty and dignity of our Sa-
viours face, but that the malice and greedi-
ness of Judas he could take from the Prior;
which indeed he is said to have done. Da
Vinci in this picture has invested the Sa-
viour's face with the blended attributes of
divinity and humanity. The serene majesty
of Deity is softened by compassionate for
giveness, in which love and sorrow are
united. An English traveller, who saw the
picture not long before Barry's visit, men
tions the popularity that on one of st. j ohm s
hands there are six fingers (the sketch of a
finger, afterwards intended to be altered,
was probably left by mistake unobliterated).
With such great gifts as he possessed, we
wonder why Leonardo did not leave behind
him more pictures we think the true rea-
son of this was that the painter was too
versatile, and aimed at too much; he seems
to have been a reviser and protector, and to
have spent too much time in planning and
dreaming. Perhaps the sarcastic Pontiff
struck the true mark when Leonardo began
his work at Rome by spending months in
preparing varnishes and boiling oils. ''This
man, he said, twill never do anything, for
he prepares for the end before he has even
made commencement" Michael Angelo,
of whom Leonardo was jealous, gave the
Florentines works, the rabble used to say,
while his rival gave them only words. In
deed, no man of such great fame has left SO
few pictures behind him.