A community of 21 Dominican friars — a dozen priests and nine novices — lives, studies and ministers at Santa Maria delle Grazie, the 15th-century Milan convent and basilica where Leonardo da Vinci painted “The Last Supper” in the 1490s. The painted hall is no longer theirs. After the Napoleonic suppression of religious houses in the 18th century, the original refectory passed into state hands and is now managed as the Cenacolo Vinciano by Italy’s Regional Directorate of Museums of Lombardy. The friars must ask permission to enter and are limited to 15-minute visits, like any other visitor.
The arrangement places Leonardo da Vinci’s 1490s mural inside a still-functioning religious house, where the Dominican order that has occupied the complex for more than five centuries continues its ministry of Mass, confession and study within steps of a hall it no longer controls.
MILAN — A dozen priests and nine novices live, study and minister at Santa Maria delle Grazie, the 15th-century Milan convent and basilica where Leonardo da Vinci painted “The Last Supper” in the 1490s. The masterpiece still hangs in the original refectory — but that hall is no longer theirs.
After the Napoleonic suppression of religious houses in the 18th century, the refectory passed into state hands. It is now managed as the Cenacolo Vinciano by Italy’s Regional Directorate of Museums of Lombardy, and the friars who live a few steps away must request permission to enter.
“We don’t go often because we have to ask permission to enter,” said the Rev. Paolo Venturelli, a Dominican friar at the convent. “It no longer belongs to us.”
Like any other visitor, Venturelli is limited to 15 minutes inside, a restriction imposed because of preservation rules. When he does visit, he prefers to stand on the opposite side of the room, away from the wall. “From there, the painting looks as though it were painted in the middle of the refectory,” he said. “It unleashes all kinds of human and spiritual reactions.”
A living religious house
The Rev. Llewellyn Muscat, prior of the community, said the friars follow no strict daily schedule but shape their routines around study, prayer and ministry. Some celebrate Mass and assist nearby parishes; others oversee the novitiate program, teach at local Catholic institutions, or collaborate with the convent’s cultural center.
Confessions draw visitors from across the city and beyond. Muscat hears them in English, Italian and Maltese, his mother tongue, while other friars offer the service in French and German. “Confessions are very much sought after and we maintain this service for the citizens of Milan but also for all visitors,” Muscat said.
Tickets to the Cenacolo are frequently sold out, and the museum closes on Mondays. The basilica, by contrast, opens daily.
Some tourists who venture into the adjacent church encounter the white-robed friars with curiosity. Maria Teresa Bruzzi, who traveled from Genoa in mid-February, said she had noticed a friar tending the cloister garden before entering the church. “We came to see Leonardo’s Last Supper but we also wanted to see the church because it’s quite special,” she said.
Inside the convent halls, shelves of books line the corridors a few steps from the tourist flow. “Reading is part of our identity,” Muscat said.
The painting’s meaning to those who live near it
Dominicans arrived at Santa Maria delle Grazie as the complex was being built in the 15th century. Most Dominican refectories have the scene of the Last Supper depicted on their walls, Venturelli said, and Leonardo was commissioned to paint the image at this convent at the request of Ludovico Sforza, then ruler of Milan. For the community, the connection is both theological and historical.
“For us, it does not awaken an emotion about something that belongs to the past,” Muscat said. “It is like a continuation in which we eat together with Jesus and his apostles, as though his words are also spoken to us.”
The community’s current refectory is tucked deep inside the convent — a modest, wide room with square tables rather than the long one Leonardo depicted. The old refectory, Muscat said, may one day belong to the order again.
“‘The Last Supper’ is a call to my personal conscience and a call to the conscience of the order,” he said. “Because here in the Grazie there are no individuals, but a community that works and welcomes.”