Santa Maria delle Grazie Convent

This beautiful 15th. century Renaissance convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie contains one of the key images of western civilization: the Cenacolo "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci.

The image captures the moment at which Christ tells his disciples that one of them will betray him. The portrait of Christ remains unfinished: Leonardo did not consider himself to be worthy enough to finish it

During the innumerable restorations that have been performed over the centuries, the painting was scraped with spatulas and metal brushes in an attempt to force the plaster back into place, but these methods only damaged the fresco even more, exposing the natural wall surface.

By 1969, many scholars believed that there was nothing at all left of Leonardo's original work, but just accumulated dirt and the paint added during successive restorations. In 1977 the first trial areas of cleaning demonstrated that it was possible to remove the extraneous layers and reach Leonardo's original paint. And this is what was done in the operation that lasted from 1978 to 1999. The image shown is from a recent restoration that was completed nearly two years ago.