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the last supper. living she when it was 1st shown in $1499.00 it created shock waves through italy and beyond changing the world of art for ever but a 20 year restoration effort has revealed the awful truth of the original fresco only some 20 percent is still visible simply put we can no longer seen or understand why this painted had such a devastating impact. or can we. this is the incredible story of a hope across europe following a trail of. lulu's of documents hidden for centuries that suggests that layla go

and his workshop painted another last supper a huge life size scale but none other than the king of france does that painting still exist if so can it reveal the secrets of the original fresco. this is where the story starts in the land the most important fashion and business city and all of modern italy and in that sense not much has changed even in the 15th century milan was a bustling city filled with artists and musicians. of all the cities states and italy the duchy of milan was the most powerful the most exuberant and the wealthiest buy for no wonder that many kings in europe wanted to conquer it. to

killie because the man in charge the juke named ludovico so forth so it was a tyrant who had ceased power in 14 he was than any other such rulers he was desperate to cloak use of illegitimacy with the splendor of a renaissance court. the jew had many projects a monastery complex called the chest tolls of the pov via a new church built right here in milan called the sometime out a a that i got out see but the biggest project of all was this massive cathedral deliberately designed to be the biggest church building in all of italy so naturally this city was a magnet for young artists and sculptors from all over the region. but while into this artist wasn't from lombardy he was from florence the most. exciting city

in all of italy a wellspring of the renaissance what was he doing painting at fresco in milan. answer may be found in a small village outside of florence called vincent. luna 2 was a natural child the son of a farmer's daughter katherina one day had a role in the hay with a promising young notary called 7 pm of course mary's was out of the question a bright future awaited said pietro provided he married a wife from a prestigious family. that's why leonardo was never truly part of the creative circles of florence around lorenzo the major with artists like the betty dillon dial or michelangelo these were folks who wrote latin sonnets and could hold their own and find society there not it was never part of that.

but said piero never forgot his son and was only as ready to use his connections to help him get work but the lack of a proper education left young leonardo at a major disadvantage. instead he was apprenticed to the workshop of one of the most prolific artists of florence and that i am here. here leonardo learned how to mix pigments prepare panels or transfer a large fresco drawings cold cartoons to a plaster wall. and eventually for allowed him to paint one of the angels in his panel of the baptism of christ it's obvious that leonardo's angel is much more beautiful than the rather darr angel to the right painted by photo keel himself

so how did he create such lovely and jelly faces the answer by using a new invention called oils. as most of florence still use the flat collars of tempera paint which dries quickly leonardo had begun to experiment with pigments mixed with oils it technique 1st developed in northern europe day adventists oil has severus extemporize that in order to create that's 3 dimensional object you pretty much have to mix every single color that you put in there or crosshatch it see or get the feeling that i mentioned but with oil you didn't have that problem you have an incredible range from black to white almost seamlessly and sell this was a huge shift for for the artists and the renaissance. i'm there is a classically trained artist who painted

a life size re creation of the sistine chapel for the motion picture angels and the . and how were these oils may. well they were ground up pigments they could be anything from bones to dry parsley to of course famous altering blue that came from afghanistan that was so expensive that it cost more than actual gold in its own weight my god more than gold as it did. the 15th century to quote the cento was a an exciting time to be in florence it was a time of rebirth the renaissance the revival of the ancient world and the arts and science and literature and engineering here for example feel equal brunelleschi used roman engineering to create this vast dome over the do moment because of florence. while burlesque he was taking measurements of

ancient temples in rome he had discovered that when you draw as street or a building all the horizontal lines seem to converge to a common center what today we call the vanishing point. rule lasky had discovered the laws of linear perspective it revolutionized the renaissance art suddenly painters could create an illusion of 3 dimensional space as if the image they painted was a window on another world. you know for us it's almost impossible to imagine the impact of this innovation why because today we are surrounded by simulated images of fall of billboards television cinema they have conditioned our brain to interpret flat images as 3 dimensional reality but in the middle ages men and women never had that

experience before and so there must have been utterly amazed by a painting like this one. the crucifixion by massaging the 1st fresco in history to use linear perspective. people in those days most of thought it was some form of magic to see space rather was only a flat wall. leonardo was also trained in the magic of linear perspective in the workshop of his master vocal and he too was amazed by the possibilities but as he began his 1st major painting they are now realized that linear perspective had one major drawback. it tended to see by fall the figures and inhibit their expressive power and many paintings the figures became like puppets fixed on

a rigid grid 10 years later leonardo would write how to give you figures a pleasing air. look about you. when you see a beautiful face remember its features and fix them in your mind. so what they are naruto is saying is don't let geometry deprive your characters of feelings of emotions of psychological drama and the 1st bold attempt to do just that as a painting that hangs right here in the 0 feeds it called the adoration of the magic. unfortunately the monks who commissioned the panel weren't interested in moving the boundaries of italian art they simply wanted a pretty picture of the native any that people could recognize and worship. and so the work was stopped and the painting remained unfinished it would take nearly 2

decades before layer nardo group realize his great vision he talked about wanting to create his work of fame he could see burning less piece of work a fame he could see done to tell us works of fame and he wanted to create his own and so his destiny he felt he lay with a large a large court with a grand patron and a single person who was going to be writing the checks and that happened to be up the most powerful man in italy me the 14 eighties and for the ninety's was the duke of milan lot of ecos fortson and so that's why he went north in 1482 to begin working for someone who was in effect a prince and not just a group of monks that's why a layman are decided to turn his back on the forums and that's why he came here in milan filled with ambition not as an artist but as an engineer a military and hit it even prepared and then press of pitch for the job but

catalogued all of us military towns. methods for destroying every fortress or stronghold and it's built on a rock. i can also design different types of can which will harm the stones and ball like a hail storm. leonardo's hopes came to know and it took several years for a joke little vico to finally notice the florentine artist but the project he gave him a huge equestrian statue ended in failure the only thing that remains of this massive project are his studies. live in arthur was ready to tackle the greatest most ambitious. composition of his young career a series of 13 live sized portraits of men seated at a table for

a wall in milan. how did the last supper project come about and who asked leonardo de painted. this may come as a surprise but you really don't know what we need to know is that the jukes for tended to favor home grown artists like giovanna don't want to follow that may not have been particularly in maginot but they delivered their work on time and on budget like this fresco of st peter bartter. what we do know is that the joke had chosen this church to become the pantheon of his dynasty . actually it was part of a dominican convent and the abbot white away saw as opportunity so he asked the

joke if he would build him a new or factory place to have meals for the monks complete with frescos the refectory was usually decorated with 2 paintings a last supper and the crucifixion of christ. the last supper illustrated the institution of the eucharist. whereas the crucifixion depicted the redemption of mankind to the suffering of jesus the 2 connor points of christian theology. the the most important for us go destined for the south wall was the crucifixion of christ this did you gave to giovanni dum want to fun know whose family had been working in the cathedral of milan for many decades. the little who all but who was going to paint the north wall. lane out of the vinci

up to this point of laying out a had done other than the failed question project and the 2 small portraits was the production of plays and masks for the entertainment of the jucundus court. was he truly going to be given this monumental fresco but laid out of was in effect a special effects man for the duke and so i i guess we would think of him as a sort of a combination set designer costume designer and special effects person for these spectaculars that lot of equal would have staged maybe a couple of times a year in the lion. that is why little nordo was determined that with this fresco he was going to use thomas the moment. and they probably would have been expecting that he would have done a last supper akin to all of those that have been done primarily in florence in

tuscany sienna for the previous 200 years but of course he did something quite different that archetype showed christ breaking bread thus establishing the 1st eucharist but like a skilled film director leonardo picked a far more dramatic see the moment when jesus the players that one of the men in the room is a traitor. that noose literally explodes from the center and hits the apostles in various poses of shock disbelief sorrow even anger the full panoply of human emotions is laid bare the same idea that had galvanized his adoration of the manager some 25 years earlier leonardo wanted action and then he also wanted the emotion and the dramatic intensity of what happened in in those seconds in jerusalem and that of course one of the magnificent things

about the painting and he brings that to life and we see that and instantly i think we can understand what's happening there is that hold for techs of human drama that's right where everyone is reacts. differently they're asking each other there's a credulity there's disbelief there's anger there is in the cases of the light same joy he just appears to be coming awake and there's being interrogated by st peter and so he does he takes each each of these 12 and gives them. some characteristics some you know with facial expression hand gestures things like that in order to take us into the character but here is the great tragedy most of these beautiful expressions are no longer visible today but as sentimental as not it. is often in the press because of emotional heat on the politic meat because you have an end up the town that added

a feisty book called last fostex question the next block it out was not essential to said especially don't add an ascended into. unlike one to refine or who used conventional fresco techniques leonardo could not resist experimenting with his pigments to try to create the same optical effects that he had pioneered with his aural paintings the result was catastrophic. i think the thing that's so interesting about him is that he's got different intellectual interests and so he's trying to achieve different goals with aims and he's asking different questions of them larry kiefer is the head of conservation and keeper had london's national gallery but also i think he really was interested in exploring. nuances of tonal british and all those kinds of distinctions that i think are really not possible to achieve in france.

in 1517 influential cardinal named luigi dada gone and his secretary and tonio debbie optus went on a tour and among others visited the convent in milan to see the last supper. as the b. artist would write it is most excellent although it is beginning to decay either because of that than most of the wall or some other form of the collect. in the centuries since the 1st go continue to deteriorate because there was a joining a kitchen so all the moisture was trapped in the wall. in the end there's really no way to know what leonardi great masterpiece looked like. or is there.

long before an tonio to visit another even more distinguished visitor came to milan with an army into this was the newly crowned king no friends leader 12 just one year after his elevation the king marched on milan to claim the city as this old. and what was the 1st thing that king louis did after he set himself up here in the castello is 4th so the answer is in the book written by lay on our toes 1st biographer george of us are. as for sorry says the king when on a visit he went to see the last supper. it was deeply pressed by the excellence of this picture both in composition and execution and convinced that he should take it back to his kingdom so he tried to find haka techs who could build a framework of wood and i have to safely transport the fresco back to france with

the regard for expense so much to he want to have it. but since it was painted no war is majesty could not have his design. but kings aren't used to being told what they cannot have and so louis decided on an even bigger gamble but for that he needed leonardo himself at least that's our theory. even though leonardo was in milan he was wanted back in florence to finish another 1st go to battle of and beyond and the whole of the $500.00 of them were done a seniority so he wasn't in a position to stay in milan and do whatever the king had in mind for him but then something extraordinary something that changed everything.

this is the arche view adela's thought of the feet hands of the state archives the forms but documents that go back over a 1000 years and here we found a truly remarkable letter with a letter that he ilija glisic although he chased him up unless an idiot if you don't think india did quest or the she generally are militia question to say then here is a letter from the french king himself king louis the 12th to the gun following year and the president of the french republic the signoria asking as we have need of master. painter the city of florence and want to make him do something by his own hand we beg you to kindly let it all work for us for a period of time and carry out the work we tend to do. i think it's becoming clear what the french king once lived in order to do if he

can have their fresh school itself he will have the next best thing a copy on canvas that he can take back to france. and what's interesting about is that the king doesn't tell the senior what he would like him to do he is very cagey about it the king doesn't say how long because if our theory is correct and he wants leonardo to make a copy of the last supper that would take. a very long time indeed. the idea of such a live sized copy was not far fetched leonardo was arguably one of the 1st painters in history who used his studio to make copies of his own works for sale such as divergent of the rocks painted with his associate your depleted he's. the madonna of the yarn winder possibly painted with his pupil francesco spaniel the

saint n. painted with his assistant mel c. and of course the mona lisa painted by his pupil and close companion sala. there was a good reason for that here in the sometime an eon of elena about had a large studio with lots of assistance but he worked very slowly and it's difficult to maintain a large studio when you have a very limited output but it's not so hard if you use your best assistants to make copies of your works for sale under the master's supervision of course so what happened to this copy of the last supper. who painted it and doesn't still exist there's only one way to find out and that is to go to france.

today we think of paris as the world's epicenter of our culture and fashion this is where the world kongs for beauty and refinement but in the 16th century things were very different. people sometimes forget that but in the middle ages it was actually burgundy. which dictated french culture not just an art but also in poetry and music and then came the scourge of the black plague and the 100 years war in which joan of arc would play such an important part.

so but it's on the way the 12th came to the throne france was a mere shadow of its former self and louis was very much aware. he knew that french artists needed to take their cue from the italian renaissance and i think that's why he was so incredibly keen to get the last offer into french . but if that's true and if a live size copy of the last supper was actually made where did it go the answer i think maybe hidden behind these walls this is the shuttle. which once served as the residents of georgia dump was. does the west was the most important member besides the king with a twist or sort of prime minister we can underline the fact that he was us both with us dick cheney. like his master king louis done once was deeply smitten

with the beauty of italian art he decided he wanted to build a shock to there was entirely in the renaissance time the 1st one in france and so he brought back scores of italian artists and masons to do just that. he took an artist went to school just unforeseeable folk and things like in the last 100 various lottery. the people of community which came here yes and what did he do you do lots of things to degrade yourself and one of the most beautiful shot of the sixty's and to reinforce. the fact that. one of leonardo's leading pupils was working in this chateau around 1509 may be the missing piece of the past.

unfortunately the chapel and much of the shuttle were destroyed in the french revolution and the term world of fall of one work that andrea painted for the shadow still exists the deposition from the cross which today hangs in the. center f l r e i what we know of him is that he was from a family of artists we think he was probably working in balance in a period when you know out of his very 1st in on so he wasn't there with him right from the beginning and around 49 to 5 how we came back from venice to 9 with his brother christopher and which is of course exactly the moment when you know days to get into work on the last day. if that's true then so loudly oh must have been present as the great friend of the last supper took shape on the refectory wall and since he was one of léonard those most talented pupils could he have been the one

who painted the copy for the french chain in the archives of the château we find a key piece of evidence an inventory of all property including printers from the 15 forties one of these paintings is no sin fact on twine and gone past the film will say your feet stop r.t.d. below a lance supper on canvas with monumental figures which his grace had brought over from malone. could this be our 1st hard piece of evidence of a live size copy of the last supper on gone past on ours with monumental figures. put this together with what we know that andreas alarie was in guy you know in 1509 and that piece of begin to fall into place. you know. there is little doubt that solaria was a favorite of the dumb was family and $1507.00 even painted

a portrait of george's nephew charlotte dumb ones charlie was none other than the governor of milan at that time but given the short time frame in which the copy was finished between 1507 and 59 business likely that not only sold but also other leonardo pupils were involved including for example jumping at 3. but here's the next question where is this campus after all if it's as big as we think it is it's not something you would lose very easily. and that's why we find ourselves on the train to antwerp in belgium to follow the next trail of plums.

we usually think of and for prez the city of rubens painter of the baroque but even in the early renaissance and for was a very important city primarily because it served as the major port of the low countries. but things started to change in the early 16th century primarily as a result of the growing tensions between the protestant north and the catholic south which ultimately produced the 80 years war. this is when the catholic church looked for every which way to defend the faith in the low countries and founded in this at the advent of total. you. know what i think is so interesting is that dutch calvinism rejected all forms of religious imagery paintings sculpture even stained glass it was old torn

down and destroyed i think that's why the abbot of total world decided he should get the biggest painting of christ and his apostles he could find to deter the north and give a boost to the catholic faithful in this son. reportedly this painting use to exist in the small chapel on the grounds of this very calm. and. oh my god there it is. yes look at this the same thing we've been looking for all these weeks. it is magnificent. so the painting was brought to bear and just in that specific moment the abbot

of tongue good lord. has asked somebody to look off to the beautiful should great. painting religious paid for didn't you were i b church he wrote a letter to the average tapper he discussed the last supper of your noted that when she was sold on the 2nd of february in 5800 $45.00 it's all the pain it was actually presented and sold. a product of lived on a living just painted by leo a lot of the while it was in those days it was not that important but probably. 90 percent of the painting as a work of. disciple spiel pulls off of genius tell me about this theory of who painted christ and seen just well. you know but i'll be.

80 who has been restoring for 22 years the original fresco in milan will achieve as she said this is a work of a goof. off fuel. costs disciples of da vinci but she said i'm convinced that a christ in us and especially also the apostle of sin john your favorite model of i think he has been painted by himself by a layer not of them yeah. why is that it's here but it's a quality the quality of your when you look at painting you see that in john this. is a very nice it's exceptional quality and very very about my day also make x. rays or some 20 years ago. there are under good hostile schedule exact

same time on christ you're telling me that there are there is an under drawing under all of the apostles yeah except for john and cross that is painted directly on the campus that was that he says stuff. of the x. rays that is an astonishing discovery. so we might conclude that even though the apostles may have been painted by his pupils a living perhaps andreas a larry that lay not to himself hated christ and since the most important figures on the last supper paid yeah yeah and that was so it's they both to painting ass a work. that's fascinating it's fantasy it is a beautiful work but is this the painting that piniella we did 12 ordered from leonardo in 1507 and that 100 or so laurie you brought to france and 1509.

fortunately the abbey has an extensive archive going back many hundreds of years and here we find in this publishing eyewitness account that full sayings of course hunts and jewel it is said that the painting is made after an original painted on a wall that is now a bad past. when the king of france who conquered milan sold the painting he was very disappointed that he could not take it with him since it was painted on a wall and so he gave the order to have a copy made and that's the copy that hangs in the choir today. so what we have here is an eyewitness document from the 16th century that confirms our theory that louis did 12th order a copy of the last supper from leonardo da vinci and that this painting now hangs

on the wall of this beautiful abbey in belgium. but then the plot thickens once more as we saw such a large campus could not have been painted by just one artist such a small time frame so who would have painted it other than in various solaria the most likely candidate is an italian artist called jump you mean for as we will discover in london he went on to make a 2nd call. for 250 years the royal academy at burlington house in london this been training generations of british artists by drawing inspiration from the work of the great masters. so we're sitting here in the library which very much relates to the training all the artists these were all what we call bacterial through artist and

father for them to look at when did the world academy acquire the copy of the last supper and why did they acquire it so it was 821 the academy bought it for 600 guineas which them with a lot of money as a sort of comparison in a few 20 the national gallery bought every old kitchen for just over 300 pounds said to spend 600 pounds on what was a copy was an immense amount of money so they had to gather all the artists together they will have to vote on it and agree that this is a good purchase it was this extraordinary example of leonardo's work i mean it's a copy i think it. it's a real window into the sort of achievements of leonardo and to have in the schools for the artist the students to look at it was it was an amazing there's a night by leonardo that refers to a john pepto who we think is probably the same person and we know that

a figure more or less of this name is working in milan from at least around $15.00 and $7.00 so in that 2nd period after leonardo has been back to florence and has then returned to milan and would you agree that he is probably one of the principal or at least some of the copy of the world yes so that's very much the current line of thinking although actually moroni has recently going back to the technical drawings underpinning this work and has due to technical analysis of the undercurrents of the work has asserted that in fact it's probably all track is hand initially and then coming in as a secondary hand. if it's true that jump you 3 know worked on both the tunnel over region and then later around $1520.00 on this copy it would seem that between these 2 paintings we would have a very accurate sense of what the original fresco once looked like.

my think the scale of it is it does appear to be very very close to the original answer me being head that we we've come investigate further afield the very place the original book track enchanted train office he had access to the an art is drawing with cartoon and i think with possibly evidence that there may have been some pretty outof tracing all you know from these original cartoon and say you know this is really interesting that the basis maybe even closer than we originally thought. not that we found not one but 2 live sized versions of the last supper by a later naruto and his top pupils do we have long last have a key to see what the fresco and milan truly look like. a last supper a painting that would go on to transform the course of western art could anyone in

the 49 have been dissipated the tremendous impact that this fresco would have he would have been told by the lord of eco and the prior of said we deliberate see the last supper is 200 years later of course it did not work like that and he did say that the way to make a painting was not to look at other paintings it was to look at real life so i think what he wanted to do and why he thought the bible was find the drama in the story was almost like he was the director of a film that he was given a brief this is the film you're going to make are going to make a film of the last supper leonardo wanted action. and he also wanted the emotion and the dramatic intensity of what happened in those seconds in jerusalem and that of course is one of the magnificent things about the painting that he brings that to life and we see that and instantly i think we can understand what's happening there 3 paintings and yet one vision

a vision of depicting the most familiar scene from the gospels in a way that had never been done before. and now we know what that original vision once looked like thanks to our canvas and the remote convent involved. of course in the years to come the high renaissance would produce some of the most memorable frescoes in history including raw files stones in the vatican and michelangelo's immortal ceiling of the sistine chapel but all that incredible realism all that monumental brass will be human figure 1st started with a for us go on the wall of a refresher in the long. jura

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