“Leonardo finished the painting by early 1498, and the duke rewarded him with a bonus of a vineyard near the church, which he owned for the rest of his life. But after only twenty years, the paint began to flake, and it became evident that Leonardo’s experimental technique was a failure. When Vasari published his biography of Leonardo in 1550, he reported that the painting was “ruined.” By 1652 the painting was so faint and dissipated that the monks felt comfortable breaking a doorway through the wall at the bottom, cutting off the feet of Jesus, which were probably crossed in a manner prefiguring the crucifixion. Over the years, there have been at least six major attempts to restore the painting, many of which only made the situation worse. The first recorded effort was in 1726 by a curator who used oil paint to fill in missing sections and then put a coat of varnish on top. Less than fifty years later, another restorer stripped away all that the first had done and started repainting the faces on his own; a public outcry forced him to stop with only three faces left to be done. During the French Revolution, anticlerical forces scratched out the eyes of the apostles, and then the refectory was used as a prison. A subsequent restorer tried to remove the painting from the wall, mistakenly thinking it was a fresco. In the early twentieth century, two cleanings were done that avoided further damaging the painting and slowed its deterioration. Allied bombs hit the refectory during World War II, but the painting was protected by sandbags. The latest restoration, which began in 1978 and lasted twenty-one years, was the most extensive ever. Chief curator Pinin Brambilla Barcilon and her team began by using infrared reflectoscopy and microscopic samples to try to discover, as best as possible, the original elements of the painting. She also had her restorers study Leonardo’s drawings and the copies of the painting made during his lifetime. The original intention was to have the wall display only what could be known to be done by Leonardo’s hand, but that turned out to be unsatisfying because so little remained. So the restorers reconstructed the missing areas in a way that indicated what was and wasn’t original; where it was not possible to discern the original artwork, the team used subtle watercolors with a lighter hue to give a sense of the original while indicating that these sections were speculative.18 Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (p. 292). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (pp. 291-292). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (p. 291). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci (p. 291). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. ”
