Restored

Leonardo: The Last Supper

Pinin Brambilla Barcilon and Pietro C. Marani Trans. by Harlow Tighe (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2001) 458 pp., 382 color illus., 64 b&w, $95.00 (clothbound)

It took Leonardo about four years to paint his famous Last Supper. It took Pinin Brambilla Barcilon 20 to restore it. Leonardo’s work (1493/4–1497) was immediately hailed a triumph—certain to bring honor to Milan’s Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where it still can be seen today, and to Ludovico Sforza, the Milanese duke who commissioned the painting.

Barcilon’s attempt to recover Leonardo’s work, which occupied her from 1977 to 1997, has received mixed reviews. Critics have deemed her restoration “clumsy,” “an affront.” The painting, they claim, is “ruined.” Others, comparing the pre-restoration painting to a woman wearing too much makeup, commend Barcilon for revealing Leonardo’s true colors.