Dr. Sally J. Cornelison

Although he painted it for the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in the northern Italian city of Milan, Leonardo’s Last Supper is deeply indebted to the longstanding Tuscan tradition of decorating ecclesiastical refectories with images from the life of Christ or that held particular relevance for the members of various religious orders who looked upon them each time they took their communal meals. In addition to exploring the function and iconography of refectory paintings, this lecture examines the rituals and foods associated with monastic and conventual dining during the Italian Renaissance.