Vatican tapestry of Leonardo’s Last Supper gets extremely rare outing

A brand new exhibition on the Reggia di Venaria, curated by Andrea Merlotti and me, brings two extraordinary works in distinctive situation from the Vatican collections to the Baroque palace northwest of Turin. In Leonardo’s Shadow: Tapestries and Ceremonies on the Papal Courtroom (till 18 June) reveals the Sixteenth-century tapestry of Leonardo’s Final Supper and the papal throne cover of Clement VII.

A replica of Leonardo’s 1494-98 mural portray within the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, the tapestry is woven fully from gold- and silver-covered silk. It arrived in Rome in 1533 as a present from King Francis I of France to Pope Clement VII on the event of the marriage between the pontiff’s niece, Caterina de’ Medici, and Henry of Valois, the second son of the king. Their union sealed the strategic alliance between the papacy and the “most Christian king” of the French towards the Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, Charles V, whose mutinous troops had sacked Rome only some years earlier.

Across the similar time, the cover was woven on fee from Clement VII (or maybe already from Leo X) by the famend Brussels tapestry-maker Pieter Van Aelst, whose workshop had already delivered the well-known Raphael tapestries for the Sistine Chapel, primarily based on cartoons by the proficient college students of Raphael, Perino del Vaga and Giovanni da Udine.

The 2 tapestries got here to be related to probably the most essential ceremonies of Holy Week, the washing of toes. The exhibition recreates the standard setting of the Holy Thursday ritual within the majestic Ducal Room of the Vatican Apostolic Palace and later at St Peter’s, the place the ceremony was relocated within the Nineteenth century to accommodate the more and more massive crowds. In imitation of Christ washing the disciples’ toes earlier than his crucifixion, the pope washed the toes of 13 clergymen beneath the shadow of the tapestry of the Final Supper, an essential Eucharistic image, which was mounted on the wall along with the cover of Clement VII.

The ceremony’s referred to as for particular robes in positive white woollen material for the clergymen, symbolically often known as “apostles”, whose toes have been washed and who obtained small bunches of contemporary flowers and two medals, one in gold and the opposite in silver.

Venaria Reale is displaying 4 uncommon 18th-century work of this solemn ceremony on mortgage from the Museo di Roma and the Villa Lagarina Diocesan Museum, along with two beforehand unexhibited drawings from the Vatican Museums and a number of Nineteenth-century lithographs. The ceremony was adopted by a banquet—represented within the exhibition by work and woodcuts—that was served by the pope himself and adorned with sugar sculptures.

The washing of toes attracted a big viewers, which additionally included princes and rulers. Cardinals, sovereigns and nobles imitated the pope’s gesture within the hospice of the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini church in Rome. This spirit of emulation rapidly unfold to crucial European courts the place, as among the works within the exhibition reveal, Catholic sovereigns repeated the ceremony within the presence of tapestries or work depicting the Final Supper.

Charles Felix, duke of Savoy, wished to put in a duplicate of Leonardo’s Final Supper within the Royal Palace of Turin to get as shut as potential to the papal ceremony he had witnessed in Rome and the unique biblical episode—recalled within the present by a ravishing Gobelins tapestry from the Palazzo del Quirinale, in addition to jugs and basins from the Turin palace and the Vatican’s Workplace of Liturgical Celebrations.

The exhibition tells the story of this essential second within the New Testomony and its seen expression in a ritual ceremony that was cast over the centuries.

• Alessandra Rodolfo is an artwork historian and curator in command of the division of Seventeenth- and 18th-century artwork and of the division of tapestries and textiles on the Vatican Museums

• In Leonardo’s Shadow: Tapestries and Ceremonies on the Papal Courtroom, Reggia di Venaria Reale, close to Turin, till 18 June