About
This iconic subject was painted for the first time by an Italian nun more than 450 years ago.
When the Dominican friars at Florence’s Santa Maria Novella didn’t feel well and needed medicinal herbs, they stepped out to Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy. But when it was time for these same monks to ingest a meal, they went to Santa Maria Novella’s refectory—a rectangular cafeteria shaped like a communal dining table, just off the grand cloister. Refectories were all about food, right down to the artwork on the walls. In Florence, they were usually decorated with a fresco of Christ’s Last Supper, an image of sustenance painted directly into a wall’s plaster, to be contemplated during mealtimes.
