The Last Supper

The Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci is best remembered as the painter of the Mona Lisa (1503-1506) and The Last Supper (1495). But he's almost equally famous for his astonishing multiplicity of talents: he dabbled in architecture, sculpture, engineering, geology, hydraulics and the military arts, all with success, and in his spare time doodled parachutes and flying machines that resembled inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries. He made detailed drawings of human anatomy which are still highly regarded today. Leonardo also was quirky enough to write notebook entries in mirror (backwards) script, a trick which kept many of his observations from being widely known until decades after his death.

Birth Name:	Leonardo da Vinci
Birthdate:	4/15/1452

The Story of "The Last Supper"

by Leonardo Da Vinci

There is an anecdote of the great painter, sculptor and inventor, Leonardo Da Vinci, about his painting "The Last Supper", one of his works presently most copied and sold.

It took 20 years to make it due to the fact that he was very strict at choosing people who would pose as models. He had problems to initiate the painting because did not find a model to represent Jesus, who should reflect in his face purity, nobility and the most beautiful feelings. He also should posses an extraordinary virile beauty. At last he found a young man with these characteristics, he was the first he painted. Then he was finding the eleven apostles, whom he painted together, leaving Judas Iscariote pending, since he did not find the adequate model. This should be a person of mature age and showing in his face the marks of treason and avarice. Thus the painting was unfinished for a long time, until they told him of a terrible criminal they had jailed. He went to see him, and he was exactly the Judas he wanted for finishing his work, for what he asked the mayor if he would allow the defendant to pose for him. The mayor, knowing the fame of the master Da Vinci, gladly accepted and the accused was taken to the painter's studio, guarded by 2 guards and chained.

During all the time that the defendant posed he did not show any emotion for being selected as model, showing himself too quiet and distant. At the end, Da Vinci, satisfied with the result, called the accused and showed him the work; when the accused saw it, extremely impressed, fell on his knees, crying.

Da Vinci, surprised, asked him the reason of his attitude, to what the prisoner answered,
"Master Da Vinci, don't you remember me by chance?"

Da Vinci observing him fixedly answered, "No, never before I have seen you."

Crying and asking forgiveness to God, the accused told him, "Master, I was that youth who 19 years ago you chose to represent Jesus in this same painting."

The moral of this story is that no matter how much physical beauty you posses, it is the inner beauty what in time finally comes out to shine on us and thusly inevitably is marked in our face.