Enlarge imageBy Christian Plumb
MILAN (Reuters) - The guide ushering tourists into the former monks’ dining hall that houses Leonardo da Vinci’s faded masterpiece "The Last Supper" tried in vain to interest her audience in art history, technique and aesthetics.
She knew that sooner or later the questions -- about the Holy Grail’s presence or absence from the work, or the real sex of the disciple to the right of Christ -- would come.
"Of course, you know there is now ’The Da Vinci Code’," Danish-born interpreter Hanne Munk told the guide at the end of her 15-minute viewing of the 30-foot (9-metre)-long painting, famed for its psychological realism and innovative use of perspective.
The guide, Lidia Sanvito, nodded wearily. The 34-year-old has heard of little else since U.S. author Dan Brown’s runaway bestseller was published in March 2003, first from American readers, then starting late last year, from Italians and others as foreign translations hit bookstores worldwide.
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"They torture me," she said of the curious visitors. "I wasn’t surprised about the Americans. But it really did shock me that Italians, with their strong Catholic traditions, would also ask these questions."
Few who visit the 500-year-old painting have not heard of the book. Many visitors nowadays admit the sensational tale of scheming priests, secret societies and pagan symbols was the main reason for their visit to Santa Maria delle Grazie church, on an otherwise quiet street in Italy’s business capital.
"The Last Supper" has always been a top tourist draw in a city whose artistic treasures pale beside those of Rome, Venice and Florence. Even in August, when a mass holiday exodus leaves Milan virtually deserted, the small square outside the church bustles with activity.
’REQUIRED READING’
A "sold out" sign hangs on the ticket office door, though admission to the painting has long been by reservation only.
Sanvito reminds visitors that Leonardo painted onto a dry wall, meaning Brown was wrong to describe the work as a fresco, which are done on wet plaster and tend to age better.
Just 25 people at a time are allowed to visit the work, whose once vibrant colours took Leonardo four years to complete and started deteriorating 20 years later, triggering a long series of attempts to preserve and restore it.
The painting has endured indignities ranging from a widening of the door in the wall it occupies -- eliminating Christ’s feet -- to a 1943 bombing raid which felled one of the walls of the refectory but miraculously spared Leonardo’s work.
"The museum has seen renewed interest from people curious about seeing the masterwork for themselves since the book became an international hit," said Giuseppe Napoleone, the state-appointed director of the exhibit.
"Working at the Last Supper and showing it to visitors, (the book) has become almost required reading for staff," he said. "More than ever they are asking which figure is John’s, and about the V shape formed between his body and Christ’s."
The book says the effeminate apostle next to Jesus is not John at all, but actually Mary Magdalene who was secretly Christ’s wife and the mother of his child, and that the V shape is a symbol for the Holy Grail, the "sacred feminine."
HIDDEN CLUES
"The Da Vinci Code" is a modern-day quest for the Grail, the chalice from which Jesus and his disciples are said to have drunk at the Last Supper. The book argues that the Grail and Mary Magdalene were actually one and the same.
Brown portrays "The Last Supper", as well as the Mona Lisa and other works by Leonardo, as brimming over with clues which his heroes use to unravel the truth about the Grail and its elite guardians.
The Milan painting is one of several tourist sites worldwide to reap the benefits, including the Louvre in Paris, where guides are also constantly asked about the novel and firms have created tours tailor-made for fans.
"John looks a little bit feminine," Sanvito tells a group of South African high school students, pointing out that there is no shortage of androgynous young men in Renaissance art. "He was a young man."
That does not discourage fans of the book, which has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
"I think (the book) is actually very believable," said one of the students, 15-year old Victoria Sinton of Johannesburg. "We did try to ask (the guide) about the Holy Grail, but she didn’t understand what we were saying."
Others were more sceptical, but still curious.
"I look at the painting and I see John, I don’t buy it," said John, a 30-year-old salesman from Pennsylvania, who had read not only the novel but a book-length analysis called "Cracking the Code."
"Fiction gives an author a lot of liberty to rewrite history," he said.
