The image of the Last Supper is as readily familiar, Kenneth Clark once wrote, as the book shape of Italy on a map. However, the history of how this famous mural came to be painted, how precisely Leonardo painted it, and who he painted it for, are much less well known. This illustrated lecture recounts how Leonardo received the commission - for whose execution he had little experience and even less inclination - from the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, and how he went about creating his masterpiece through an experimental new style. While the mural is burdened with many myths - most of which have little if any basis in fact - the true story of its execution is even more remarkable and interesting.
Dr. Ross King is the award-winning author of books on Italian, French and Canadian art and history. Among his books are Brunelleschi’s Dome, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, and Leonardo and The Last Supper. He is a member of the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project, which seeks to reconstruct the artist’s genome, and he has compiled and edited a book of Leonardo da Vinci’s fables, jokes and riddles.