Page 82 - All About History - Issue 08-14

History's narrowest escapes

nusually for a piece of art, Leonardo da Early attempts to save the picture involved
Vinci’s Last Supper was thought of as a using everything from alcohol to caustic soda and
n 4 February 1943 prime minister masterpiece in the artist’s own lifetime. were horribly botched. In 1821, an artist called
Winston Churchill was sent an urgent It was painted on the northern wall of Stefano Barezzi had the idea of taking all the
telegram by his deputy Clement Attlee. U the refectory at the Santa Maria delle paint off and mounting the whole thing on canvas
It read: “Attempts are going to be made Grazie convent in Milan, Italy, and has captivated instead. When he realised that he was destroying
O to bump you off.” millions of visitors for more than 500 years since the Last Supper, Barezzi gave up and haplessly
Churchill was travelling secretly in North its completion in 1498. The fact that people in tried to glue the pieces back on.
Africa but British codebreakers discovered the 2014 can still marvel at its genius is something of In 1796, Napoleon marched triumphantly into
Nazis knew his movements and were plotting miracle in itself. Milan and French troops were billeted at the
to kill him. The messages showed that Within a few years after it was finished it was convent. The room housing the Last Supper was
assassins were primed to kill Churchill when already flaking away. By 1556, when Giorgio Vasari soon in use as a stable, with soldiers using the
he arrived in Algeria. visited, he claimed there was not much more to painting for target practice, amusing themselves
Churchill had already dodged several see than “a muddle of blots.” Part of the reason for by lobbing bricks at the heads of the apostles.
assassination attempts during his lifetime, but this was the way da Vinci had created it. To form However, the Last Supper’s biggest threat occurred
this time the killers were planning to exploit a traditional fresca he would have had to paint when Mussolini’s Italy entered WWII. An
his famous love of alcohol. A German agent quickly on damp plaster, but he didn’t like to rush important industrial centre, Milan was targeted by
called Hans-Peter Schulze knew the route and so used a slower method oil and tempura over Allied bombers on around 50 occasions. On the
Churchill was taking, and now four assassins dry plaster. night of 16 August 1943, the inevitable happened
were on their way to Algeria with orders to This allowed da Vinci to make changes as he and a ten-ton bomb landed on the convent.

end his life. went along, but also meant the painting was Amazingly, the painting emerged from the
One of the messages to Berlin read: never properly fixed to the surface, leaving a time rubble intact. It had been sandbagged, which
“Dispatch urgently 20-50 machine pistols bomb for those who, in the following centuries, protected it from shrapnel. After that it was
with ammunition, magnetic and adhesive attempted to preserve one of the world’s cultural only covered with a tarpaulin though, leaving it
mines. Also poisons for drinks…” Another wonders. In 1652, it suffered a different sort dangerously exposed but the refectory was not
message showed the killers had crossed the of calamity when a group of friars decided to hit again and some 30 years after the end of the
frontier and were on their way to complete have a door put through the middle of the wall war a new restoration effort was started. In 1999
their mission and so Attlee sent his hurried supporting the painting, entirely obliterating the restored painting was put back on view to the
message marked to warn Churchill. It Christ’s legs for good. public, its future finally secure.
continued: “We have studied possibilities very
carefully and I and my colleagues, supported Supper was
by the Chiefs of Staff, consider that it would “ The room housing the Last
be unwise for you to adhere to your present soon in use as a stable, with soldiers
programme. We regard it as essential... you
proceed to England.” using the picture as target practice”
However, Churchill was already on his way
to Algiers. Once there, the prime minister was Damage at Santa Maria delle
Grazie in Milan, where the
rushed out of the country via an altered route
Last Supper was housed,
and arrived home, safe to continue plotting after an Allied air raid
the Allies’ success.

Da Vinci’s Last Supper is one of the
world’s most precious paintings

82