The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-07-30
The " Last Supper


painting is lasting regret to all art
students. AS to its causes, the first
misfortune was, that it should have
been painted in oil instead of fresco,
kind of work i'll suited to the slow re-
touching hand and most fastidious taste
of the artist, Leonardo da Vinci, who
was glad, on this account, to take ad-
vantage of the then recent invention of
body colors. A miserable fresco at the
other end of the refectOry of S. M. dele
Giraffe, at Milan, in which this great
work was produced, painted in the same
age, still tantalizes the observer by the
freshness of its tints, while the master
piece of Leonardo, perhaps of the art,
has been gone for ages. It is further
said that he used oil too much refined,
and of too thin consistency.
It is certain, too, that the plaster on
which he worked had some defect, which
made it scale off in few years. Then
the convent is situated in a damp place,
and the refectory is in the lowest part
of the building; so that at all times
when there is an inundation in the
Milanese, the room is filed with water.
From all these causes the picture re-
tanned its original beauties only for a
few years. It was finished in 1893 !; in
1910 it was half efaced; and ten years
later, the outlines only remained, the
colors being entirely gone. A century
after this, the venerable fathers whose
lot it was to occupy the same room with
it during very interesting portion of
the day, observing with their wonted
sagacity) that the straight line which
Joined their table and the kitchen passed
through the centre of the picture, and
by no means through the door, and
aware, from instructive science, that the
straight line between these two points
was the shortest, thought proper to cut
through the wall, and thus destroyed a
part of the principal figure, and the two
figures next it. With tenderness for
their sovereign, almost equal to their
zeal for their own clerical duties, they
next nailed a great escutcheon of the
emperor upon the middle of the wall,
so as to reach the heads of the group.
But the tender mercies of those rever-
| end personages have been still more
| fatal to this masterpiece, and have fin
| ished the destruction which the neg
| ligence begun. In 1926 they employed
an artist who pretended to have a secret
for revivipg lost cOlors, and allowed him
to work upon the "Supper," under an
awning that concealed his operations.
This dauber, whose name was Belloti,
| painted the whole picture over again,
with the exception of portion of the
| sky, as seen through the window, the
| original color of which remained nearly
entire. Finally, its destruction was
completed in ITO, by one Mazza, who
actually scraped out most of the few
outlines which remained of the original,
and had inserted heads of his own in all
| the figures but three, when he was
stopped by a change in the convent, and
new prior succeeding.
In 1876, BOnaparte, out of respect for
the place, rather than that it signifed
much what now became of the picture,
signed an order there, before he re-
mounted his horse, prohibiting any
military use being made Of the apart
ment but soon after, ole of his geher-
ais broke down the doors, and made q
stable of it. The dragons, as might
| be expected, amused themselves with
throwing stones at the heads, being told
they were meant to represent the apOs-
ties. The refeotory was then used for
| some years as magazine of forage
and when at length permission was
| given to wall up the door, in order to
prevent further adaptations, so little
was it attended to, that in 1900, a flood
having covered the floor q foot deep
with water, it was suffered to remain
until it dried by evapOrtiOn.
Such is the history, and so complete
the destruction of this celebrated pic
ture and thus entirely from tradition,
and through the medium of copies and
engravings, do we derive all the knowl-
edge of it's merit which we can now
obtain. Happily those copies are nu-
merous, and some of them by contem-
original in the days of it's greatest pres
ervation.