Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, just forty years before the discovery of America by Columbus. He belongs to that wonderfully enthusiastic age — the Renaissance — that period of the rebirth, when after centuries of dormancy the souls of men awoke to the beauty and the wonder of the external world; when the inspiration of Greece broke the fetters of slavish imitation; when learning became so democratic that it demolished the strongholds of superstition. It was during this time that Leonardo, a boy between ten and fifteen, came to Florence to study art in the studio of Verrocchio
It was in such an age that Leonardo rose to be master in all things pertaining to art. He himself had been richly endowed by nature. Tall, graceful, with a face strong and faultless in contour, he moved about with the ease and dignity of a Greek god. Amiable and generous, he made friends of all classes; he loved and was loved even by the animals, which he loved to such an extent as to become a vegetarian rather than inflict death on any living creature.
When Leonardo was about thirty years of age, he left Florence to reside in Milan. It was during his stay in Milan that he painted the Last Supper on the northern wall of the refectory, or dining room, of the convent church Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Although the glory of the original coloring has departed and the surface of the wall is scarred and cracked, the painting is justly regarded as one of the world’s masterpieces. There are many critics who do not hesitate to declare that, as regards composition at least, it is the supreme masterpiece in the whole field of pictorial art.
As the wall was built of stone containing nitre, readily absorbing dampness, and as he was zealous fo producing splendid effects in coloring, the painter experimented in tempera, a medium still lacking in durability at that time. The painting had already suffered deterioration when Vasari in 1566 called it a “tarnished patch of colors.” Then there were external forces at work. The monks themselves committed vandalism by cutting a door through the wall just below the figure of Christ. When in 1796 the Napoleonic invasion entered Milan, the French soldiers used the refectory as a stable for their horses, although Napoleon had given orders that the picture should not be injured. Unfortunately, the general in command did not obey the instructions explicitly, for the French soldiers occasionally amused themselves by pelting the heads of the Apostles with clods of clay. In 1800, a flood covered the floor of the refectory to a depth of two feet, and when the waters subsided, the painting was covered with a thick mould. The picture has also