The Last Supper

Jesus has just said that one of them will betray him. The shock runs down the table to both sides and gathers the twelve into four groups of three. He himself sits still in the middle, in front of the window.

Leonardo did not paint in true fresco but with tempera and oil on the dry wall, so that he could work slowly. The paint began to flake in his own lifetime. In 1652 a door was cut into the wall and took away Christ's feet. In 1943 a bomb destroyed the refectory; the wall with the painting, protected by sandbags, remained standing.