Created during the period 1495-98, Leonardo da Vinci's mural

painting known as The Last Supper - a masterpiece of the

Italian High Renaissance and one of the best-known works
of Christian art - illustrates the scene from the last days of Jesus
Christ, as described in the Gospel of John 13:21. Flanked by his
twelve apostles, Jesus has just declared that one of them will
betray him. ("Verily I say unto you: one of you will betray me.")
The picture depicts the reaction of each disciple to the news.
Although on the surface it looks like a straightforward piece
of Biblical art, it is in fact an exceptionally complex work, whose
mathematical symbolism, psychological complexity, use of
perspective and dramatic focus, make it the first real example of
High Renaissance aesthetics. Leonardo first sealed the stone wall
surface and then painted over it with tempera and oils, as if it were
a wooden panel. As a result, the work began deteriorating almost
from the moment it was finished - writing a mere 70 years later,
the biographer Giorgio Vasari described it as "so badly done that
all that can now be seen of it is a glaring spot" - and has been the
subject of a recent 20-year restoration campaign. Even so, the
work remains one of the greatest Renaissance paintings.