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Santa Maria delle Grazie
The church that was a monastery where Leonardo da Vinci painted Upper Room fresco. Where did I leave off? Oh yes, we are on our way to Milan. We have a week's worth of dirty clothes and tomorrow we see Leonardo's
Upper Room fresco. Buff Googled the address of Hotel Mokinba the night before, so should be easy. Famous last words. How appropriate - last supper, last words. As we get to Milan, we seem to travel right on around it to a town called Legnano. Last - there's that word again - night, when Buff mentioned Google had the address in Legnano, I said "That doesn't seem right, the church is just a few minutes walk away from the hotel." Well after an hour or so searching for Corso Magenta and the street number of the Hotel, Buff finds a travel agency at the 'hotel' address. I felt so bad for him, I didn't say a word as he was profusely apologizing. We get back on the autostrada and head for the real Milan and the
other Corso Magenta, that Google failed to bring up. Our navigational problems were just about to really begin. Let me share, Milan is not a city for the inexperienced traveler. And the sun was beginning to set! My 'cheaters' barely work during strong daylight for the fine print on the maps we have. Oh, why didn't we buy the Italian Atlas Maps? I am
so Welsh, a penny wise and pound foolish do they say? If you look that idiom up, you'll see a picture of me.
At what seems the last streak of daylight we find the hotel, with a parking space out front! It's starting to rain, but who cares? We get checked in, luggage up to the room and ask the front desk for help finding a 'lavandaria'. We know the word well. We're off! But it's closed, and it's a very downtown area not looking like it would be a laundromat anyway. We both have to kick in our best navigational skills just to find the parking garage we are suppose to be in for the night. Our saving grace is a huge 5 - storey billboard with ladies advertising something, I'm not sure what, but it's a landmark and we see it and know that we're close to the hotel. We start over on our way to the parking garage and find it. Probably 1 & 1/2 hours later. We scrounged from our backpack supply of snacks for supper. One good thing...we drove by the church where the fresco is, maybe a couple of times, shouldn't be a problem finding it in the morning. Oh my! Last words again.
Not to worry, we found Santa Maria delle Grazie just fine the next AM, after a nice breakfast at Hotel Mokinba. They let us keep our luggage there, while we walked to the church and saw the fresco. This was a personal highlight of the trip for me! Because Leonardo used a dry fresco technique, 'secco', it began to deteriorate within five years of completion. Two hundred years later, Napolean's troops were using the fresco and the wall it was on for target practice. During WWII the church was bombed. Some considered it a miracle that the wall with the fresco was the only part of the church left standing. Over twenty years of major restoration were completed in 1999, seeking to preserve the fresco as it had looked five centuries previously when Leonardo da Vinci had finished his great work of art.
Santa Maria was first a monastery. Evidently, there is a tradition for murals of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion to be on the shorter walls of monastery refectories. So it is here. Leonado's
Upper Room on the North Wall and on the South Wall
Crucifixion by Giovanni Donato Montorfano, which is a great fresco in it's own right. Just overshadowed a bit by the one on the other end of the room. Interesting note: When the monks wanted a doorway to the kitchen, they removed a portion of the North wall. That is why Jesus' feet are missing, and part of the tablecloth below him looks like the top of a door. I've seen a small photo of Leonardo's study for Jesus' right foot. The original is kept at Windsor Castle in a Royal Collection. His sketch is beautiful!
The refectory is very large, temperature controlled, and kept dark unless people are viewing the frescoes. The groups are kept small, dehumidified in an antechamber and then allowed private time to view and reflect on the frescoes, closer at a railing or seated a few feet back on benches. We stayed as long as we could. What can one say about the moment captured by this great artist when Christ made the statement to his Apostles: "One of you shall betray me."
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smith
non-member comment
laundry
..i was glad u had that dirty laundry...i was beginning to think it was MY laundry i smelled.... keep up the good time