The life of Leonardo da Vinci by John William Brown

Leonardo is painting The Last Supper

However, it remained tolerably discernible until the Dominicans themselves were driven out of their Convent when the French army invaded Italy under Napoleon. The Convent was then used as a cavalry depot, and the Refectory turned into a stable; so that the brutality of the soldiery soon completed what the ignorance of the priesthood and the ravages of time had commenced. With a spirit of destruction scarcely to be accounted for, the troops of Republican France had no hesitation in firing at our Saviour and all the Apostles, leaving more proofs of their skill as marksmen than of their feelings as Christians or civilized beings.

It is now so much destroyed that it is even a matter of dispute whether it was originally painted in oil, fresco, or tempera. That it was done in oil is most probable, from it always having been said so in the earliest engravings, and spoken of as such in contemporaneous writings, and also from its speedy decay, there being rarely an instance of the durability of oil painting upon walls. Many authors pretend that the colours faded so soon from Da Vinci's having made use of some particular varnish or chemical preparation, as he was always considered too fond of experiments. Had Leonardo been merely a painter, he would have been contented with the usual methods of painting; but his lofty genius and love of new inventions tended on this, as on many other occasions, to eclipse his fame; for, had it been otherwise, this great work might have been spared to the present age.

Much of the destruction which this picture has suffered most doubtless be attributed to bad restoration; and considerable allowances should be made for the envy of his contemporaries. We may endeavour to trace the progress of its decay, as the only consolation which remains to us for such a loss; and when we consider the time in which it was executed, it must be allowed to have been one of the greatest works of art ever undertaken.

Raphael's "School of Athens" is considered by some as a work of greater merit; but it should be recollected that a number of years had elapsed between the painting of these two pictures, and that great progress had been made in the arts during that period. Besides, it is scarcely just to Leonardo Da Vinci that Raphael should claim superiority from having profited by the improvements which his predecessor had intro- duced. It is a curious coincidence that the two invasions of Ifaly: by the French should have been equally detrimental to Da Vinci's two great works, although so many centuries intervened between them: as Monsignore Sabba da Castiglione, a noble Milanese, tells on it his "Ricordi" that "he saw the bowmen of Gascony make use of Da Vinci's model for the colossal statue of Francesco Sforza as a target," and many noble Milanese of the present day could tell on in their "ricordi," that they saw the troops of Republican France make a somewhat similar use of his magnificent picture of "The Last Supper".