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
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.
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.