Milan, the Cenacolo Vinciano reopens. And new lighting is on the way

In Milan, the Cenacolo Vinciano reopens to the public from today. Until Feb. 21 it will remain open for visits Tuesday through Friday with first access at 9:45 a.m., last access at 6:45 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, unless changes are made to current Covid containment regulations, it will remain closed. Admissions can be reserved online, with weekly presale, given the uncertainties about how the situation will evolve. But tickets can also be purchased on the day of the visit at the museum’s ticket office from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., until all available seats are sold out (which until Feb. 12 will be 12 every quarter hour, to become 18 from the 16th of the month).

With the Last Supper, and the Capo di Ponte archaeological parks also reopening as of tomorrow, the reopening of all museum venues managed by the Lombardy Museums Directorate is complete. The Roman Archaeological Museum in Cividate Camuno, and the Mupre in Valle Camonica remain closed. The former because it is currently being transferred to a new and more suitable location that will be opened soon, and the latter because special openings are being arranged.

“Over the next few months,” announces the director of Lombardy’s state museums, Emanuela Daffra, “the Cenacolo will be the subject of several significant interventions conducted both with MiBACT funds and thanks to the contribution of private entities. First of all, an intensified monitoring of the state of health of Leonardo’s masterpiece. Since 1999, the year in which the 20-year intervention conducted by Pinin Brambilla on the Last Supper ended, the goal has been to prevent damage that could lead to yet another intervention. By updating, as they evolve, the monitoring and diagnostic technologies on the painting. In addition to monitoring the air quality in the Refectory and the static aspects of the Last Supper wall, we have initiated new diagnostic investigations to verify the actual, current state of the painted surface. Already starting next month, thanks to the support of the Rotary Club Milano Sempione, the Supper will undergo a campaign of multispectral surveys by Annette Keller. These investigations, which will detect the possible presence of traces not perceptible with visible light present on Leonardo’s painting, will complement those already underway by the CNR and ICR. To collect this and other information, an agreement has been signed with the Politecnico di Milano to develop an integrated management system for multiple data: it will be a useful model both for monitoring the work over time and for the alternative enjoyment by visitors of complementary content related to the work. The refectory is not just Leonardo, however. Opposite the Supper, crushed by comparison, stands Donato Montorfano’s coeval Crucifixion. The total dusting of the wall carried out during the recent weeks of closure revealed undramatic but urgent conservation needs and allowed us to appreciate the work’s qualities, which are anything but trivial. In the middle months of this year, the restoration of this large fresco will be initiated, allowing the public to observe the work in progress, including from a close-up perspective.”

Moreover, the restoration of Donato Montorfano’s Crucifixion and the wall paintings in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie is fully funded by MiBACT. In addition, starting next fall, the Upper Room will have new lighting. Thanks to a technical sponsorship from iGuzzini and Massimo Iarussi’s design, the refectory will be equipped with a new system, even more effective than the current one. It is expected to further reduce the proportion of lux that can prove detrimental to the conservation of Leonardo’s work and at the same time to improve the visitor experience, giving a better understanding of the complexity of the environment and what its functions were originally. The decorations present will be discreetly enhanced in a path where light will become a thread in the narrative.

“I would then also like to emphasize,” Director Daffra further declares, “that by this year the Cenacolo will also be greener. This is a choice of the museum’s management that I have personally very much supported because I believe that a symbolic monument like the Last Supper should contribute to making people understand that museums are also involved in protecting the environment and our planet.” In collaboration with the Milan Polytechnic, in the persons of Professors Joppolo and Ferrari, the Cenacolo Museum will in fact renovate the plant system with a thermal power plant and heat pump energy production, lowering emissions and optimizing energy production. This project will also be implemented with MiBACT funds.

“Attention to the environment, then, but also to wider accessibility,” Daffra concludes. “As we have done for the past years, precisely because of the symbolic importance of the place, we have worked to wrest the Cenacle from its isolation and from a tourist-only fruition. The Cenacolo Museum, for example, for 2021 is finalizing an agreement with the Opera prison that aims to facilitate the reintegration of inmates and to offer them and their families opportunities to approach culture through the heritage connected to one of the most famous and celebrated works of world painting. Finally, the Cenacle 2021 aims to offer each visitor the best possible welcome. We have always done this, but with the new concessionaire, an ATI led by Verona 83 and grouping AdArtem and Giunti, we are developing more agile itineraries, guided tours that know how to balancely touch the emotional register as well as the scientific one, a renewed book shop and the unprecedented Cenacolo Live experience to make the museum usable even when it is closed and prepare for a live encounter with this extraordinary space... so as to transform the visit to the Cenacolo into a ’warm’, exciting and at the same time more informative moment.”

Image: Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper (1494-1498; tempera on plaster, 460 x 880 cm; Milan, Santa Maria delle Grazie)

Milan, the Cenacolo Vinciano reopens. And new lighting is on the way

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