Source:
https://scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2043301/renaissance-artist-giorgio-vasaris-last-supper-restored-50-years
World/ Europe

Renaissance artist Giorgio Vasari’s ‘Last Supper’ restored 50 years after flood

Vasari’s depiction of The Last Supper was among art damaged when the River Arno burst banks

People attend the presentation of Giorgio Vasari’s The Last Supper, after years of painstaking restoration, as it is returned to the Santa Croce Basilica in Florence. Photo: AP

A 16th-century painting by Renaissance artist Giorgio Vasari that was badly damaged in a 1966 flood in Florence has been unveiled to the public after years of painstaking restoration.

Vasari created The Last Supper for a convent of cloistered nuns. Because the nuns eschewed contact with men, and because the work was large – 6.6 metres by 2.6 metres – Vasari painted it in his studio on five wood panels that could be easily transported and recomposed in the convent.

The work depicts the scene from the Bible in which Jesus Christ shares his final meal with his apostles.

It was among thousands of works of art and rare books that were damaged and covered in mud when the Arno River broke its banks, flooding homes, churches, shops and libraries and killing about 100 people.

Renaissance artist Giorgio Vasari.
Renaissance artist Giorgio Vasari.

At the time, a corps of global volunteers dubbed the “angels of the mud” descended upon Florence, the historical heart of the Italian Renaissance, to rescue artworks, although thousands of pieces were still lost.

The Last Supper, which was unveiled in the Basilica of Santa Croce as part of a commem­orative ceremony on the 50th ­anniversary of the disaster, had been initially deemed too badly damaged to be restored and was left in storage for four decades.

In 2006, the Italian arts resto­ration agency known as OPD found that restoration technologies had advanced enough that it was possible to try to save Vas­ari’s work. After two years of study, they began restoring with a team of up to 13 experts.

Flooding in Florence 1966.
Flooding in Florence 1966.

“In the beginning, everyone said it was impossible to restore,” said Marco Ciatti, the head of the OPD. “It was a long battle but we made it.”

A contemporary of Michelangelo, Vasari was a painter, arch­itect and writer famous for a history he penned of the great ­Renaissance artists of Italy. He was consistently employed by members of the Medici family in Florence and Rome, and worked in Naples,

To guard against future damage, the painting has been attached to a mechanism that raises it higher on the wall in case of another flood.