Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie
Renaissance dining hall holding Leonardo's Last Supper mural, saved by sandbags when wartime bombs destroyed the room around it.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan turns on the night of August 15, 1943, when British bombers struck the block and tore the roof off the monks' refectory next door. You'll hear about the sandbags and scaffolding quietly packed around one particular wall beforehand, and about Leonardo da Vinci's unusual choice of technique when he painted it between roughly 1495 and 1498. It follows what that wall endured afterward, from stabled horses to a restoration that took decades.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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