Description
The Cenacolo di Sant'Apollonia is a small museum in Florence, near San Marco, in the former refectory of a cloistered Benedictine monastery. It has just one work, but a great one: Andrea del Castagno's Last Supper, probably painted in 1447, which fills an entire wall.
For four centuries almost nobody saw it. The refectory belonged to cloistered nuns, and the old guides to Florence, Vasari included, do not mention it. It reappeared only in the 19th century, with the suppression of the convent. At first it was attributed to Paolo Uccello, then scholars recognized Andrea's hand.
The scene is set in a room in the antique style with the front wall missing, like an open box, with perspective that makes it look like an extension of the real hall. The apostles sit in a row; Judas is alone, on the other side of the table, and his bearded profile recalls a satyr, that is, the devil.
Behind Christ, a panel of variegated marble, like agate, draws the eye straight to Jesus, Peter and Judas. And there is even a mistake: if you count its panels, the side walls should be half as long.
Above the Supper are the Resurrection, Crucifixion and Deposition, detached in 1953 because of damp. Below were the preparatory drawings, the sinopie, now displayed on the opposite wall: a way to see how the painter worked before painting.
Andrea painted it when the abbess Cecilia Donati was enlarging the Benedictine monastery, founded in 1339. The rest of the convent, with the deconsecrated church, belongs largely to the University.
The museum also holds other works from the monastery and from the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, including traces of frescoes and sinopie by Domenico Veneziano, and a Christ in pity held by two angels by Andrea himself.
In the Last Supper, next to Christ, a Saint John sleeps: it is a traditional element of the iconography, also found in Taddeo Gaddi's refectory fresco in Santa Croce. The perspective box, on the other hand, has a precedent in Orcagna's Last Supper in Santo Spirito, from around 1360-65.
For four centuries almost nobody saw it. The refectory belonged to cloistered nuns, and the old guides to Florence, Vasari included, do not mention it. It reappeared only in the 19th century, with the suppression of the convent. At first it was attributed to Paolo Uccello, then scholars recognized Andrea's hand.
The scene is set in a room in the antique style with the front wall missing, like an open box, with perspective that makes it look like an extension of the real hall. The apostles sit in a row; Judas is alone, on the other side of the table, and his bearded profile recalls a satyr, that is, the devil.
Behind Christ, a panel of variegated marble, like agate, draws the eye straight to Jesus, Peter and Judas. And there is even a mistake: if you count its panels, the side walls should be half as long.
Above the Supper are the Resurrection, Crucifixion and Deposition, detached in 1953 because of damp. Below were the preparatory drawings, the sinopie, now displayed on the opposite wall: a way to see how the painter worked before painting.
Andrea painted it when the abbess Cecilia Donati was enlarging the Benedictine monastery, founded in 1339. The rest of the convent, with the deconsecrated church, belongs largely to the University.
The museum also holds other works from the monastery and from the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, including traces of frescoes and sinopie by Domenico Veneziano, and a Christ in pity held by two angels by Andrea himself.
In the Last Supper, next to Christ, a Saint John sleeps: it is a traditional element of the iconography, also found in Taddeo Gaddi's refectory fresco in Santa Croce. The perspective box, on the other hand, has a precedent in Orcagna's Last Supper in Santo Spirito, from around 1360-65.