There are some ruined frescoes by Gaudenzio Ferrari in the fourth Chapel on the south side of the church. The old, low-vaulted ornate chapel of the Rosario, on the north side, has some fifteenth century frescoes, also ruined. Close to the altar is a large sepulchral monument to the Della Torre family, late fifteenth century, attributed to the Cazzaniga. The monument to Branda Castiglione, with the realistic profile and delicate arabesques, is perhaps by Briosco,[[17]] and that to the Della Valle by Fusina.

[17]. See Malaguzzi Valeri, G. A. Amadeo, p. 238.

The most interesting part of the building architecturally is the small cloister which leads to the old sacristy, both recently restored. Here the beautiful porticoes, in which the characteristic Lombard charm of colour due to the combination of brick and stone is joined to a singular purity and grace of form, justify the traditional belief that Bramante was the architect. The sacristy also, a lofty rectangular building, is probably his. The roof is decorated with a curious painted pattern of intertwisted cords, such as is seen in some of Leonardo’s drawings. There are beautiful presses, some of which are inlaid, others painted in imitation of inlay; they are decorated with small painted scenes, biblical and legendary. They were begun in 1498 by the sacristan, Fra Vincenzo Spanzotto, and continued later under the care of Matteo Bandello. In the recess at the east end there is a very poor altarpiece, representing Gaspare Vimercati kneeling before St. John Baptist, attributed to Marco d’Oggiono; and on either side of the chapel a profile in bas-relief, one a portrait of the Moro, the other of his son Maximilian, a charming-looking youth with curling hair, at about the age when he returned to Milan as Duke—by some Milanese sculptor of the early sixteenth century. A fresco on the right-hand side, by Luini, shows Madonna, with Beatrice d’Este and one of her little sons kneeling as devotees. It is a charming presentment, joyous and young, of the princess as she may have remained in the memory of the artist from the days of his youth.

The convent, now long converted to secular purposes, was, like the church, the object of Lodovico Sforza’s generosity. Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by him to decorate the refectory with paintings, and there the Florentine artist, working slowly through many years, produced his Last Supper. The work was probably begun soon after 1483, and apparently not finished till 1498. The fate that befell it within a few years is one of the greatest tragedies in the history of art. Owing to his experimental use of oil, instead of the usual method of wall-painting, it was already quite ruined—rovinata tutta—when Lomazzo wrote his treatise on painting, sixty years later, and as early as 1536 it was, by Vasari’s testimony, only a blur. The repeated restorations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have almost obliterated the faint remaining traces of the master’s handiwork. The Dominicans wantonly contributed to the destruction of their priceless possession by cutting a door into their kitchen through the lower part of the central group, and Napoleon’s troops, stabled in the hall in 1796, gave it a final battering.

The refectory stands beside the church. As one enters, the ghost of the great picture appears at the upper end of the long melancholy chamber. It seems at first sight as if nothing of the real work were left. Cosa bella mortal passa, Leonardo has said himself, and he, least of all, seems to have cared to give immortality to the beauty which he created. E non d’arte, he adds. And soon we perceive that this too is true here. For the deep and elemental significance of the painter’s conception lives still in its largeness and entirety, expressed in the great lines of the composition, in the distribution of light and shade, in the disposition of the figures. Our eyes are carried up by every line of the composition, every action of the subordinate figures, and left alone with the Christ. He sits upright, His hands spread out upon the table, His head against the space of light framed by the large middle window of the long chamber. On either side, but a little apart, so that no other head intrudes on this central space of light, are ranged the Twelve, in groups of three. The words have been uttered—One of you shall betray me—and a tempest of surprise and questioning agitates them. Peter, half rising, grasps the shoulder of John, who still sleeps on. Judas draws fiercely away, clutching the moneybag. Beyond this group, Andrew, James the Less, and Bartholomew, variously show distress and wonder. On the other side, James the Elder spreads his hands in horror; Thomas lifts his forefinger; Philip, risen, leans forward in earnest protest. Matthew, Thaddeus and Simon, beyond, comment eagerly on His words. But their agitation cannot touch that central stillness; it serves only to deepen the spiritual silence in which He sits solitary. He has eaten and drunk with them, but they have not understood. Love itself is asleep, leaning away to a sinner’s breast. Only Hate understands and watches, proud and defiant, with tense grasp upon its desire. But even the splendid Judas, supremely evil, draws back afraid. The Passion has begun. Out there in the dawn lies Gethsemane. Calvary is beyond. Could ye not watch with Me one hour? will be but a question already answered; only the Eli Eli lama Sabacthani has yet to come.

To face p. [314]]
LAST SUPPER, BY LEONARDO. DETAIL, FIGURE OF CHRIST
[A. Ferrario, Milan

It is commonly said that Leonardo never quite finished the face of the Christ. In any case we do not see it now as he left it. The half-length pencil drawing in the Brera Gallery has been regarded as Leonardo’s own study for this figure, but if it is genuine—which many authorities deny—it has been so much worked over by other hands that it has no value as an indication of the artist’s conception, which remains for us unparticularised. Studies of the heads of Matthew, Simon and Judas fortunately exist in the Windsor Castle Collection and show the heroic lines on which they were designed by Leonardo. The drawings of the Apostles in the Weimar Collection, photographs of which are to be seen in the room, are judged to be copies of studies made by one of Leonardo’s followers from the picture, and are valuable as giving a contemporary version of the originals. There are also a few genuine sketches at Windsor and at Paris of some of the groups, and in Venice a drawing of the whole scene exists, probably a copy of one by the master. The subject had long occupied Leonardo’s thoughts before he received the commission, and these sketches show the progress of his conception of it. Among his writings, too, there are ideas noted down of various attitudes and actions for the Apostles.

Some of the many copies made by Leonardo’s pupils hang on the walls here; the most important is the one on the right hand nearest the original, by Marco d’Oggiono. Here the artist has followed his master’s work as faithfully as he could, and it is extremely interesting to notice the differences into which his own temperament has insensibly led him. These are most apparent in the central figure, which he has inclined sideways and impressed with a sentimentality and effeminacy absolutely foreign to the attitude of the original. This shows the direction in which Leonardo’s Lombard followers were disposed instinctively to carry his style, evolving a morbid type which has become too much associated with his name. The copyist appears to have altered the Apostles, also giving the weakness of exaggeration to their virile and spontaneous expression of emotion. It is from this copy, or rather from a copy of it and not from the ruined original, that the engraving was done by which the picture has become known all over the world, another instance of the strange fate of ruin or of travestied existence which has befallen so much of Leonardo’s work. The other copies in the room lose value by their departure in part from the arrangement of the original.