Restored Masterpiece

In Milan's Santa Maria delle Grazie refectory last week, a crotchety oldster scraped with a surgeon's knife at one of the world's greatest paintings and muttered in annoyance as the tourists clustered around. To the spectators, his knife-wielding seemed the final indignity to the remains of Leonardo da Vinci's famed Last Supper, sorely damaged by 400 years of weather and bungling restorers. Professor Mauro Pelliccioli, 65, knows better. Next month Italy's No. 1 art restorer will finish up his work on the 15th century masterpiece, and one government official has already pronounced it "the greatest undertaking ever accomplished in the art and science of restoration."

Such praise only annoys the testy professor even more. "Nonsense," he snaps. "It's no more difficult than restoring any other old painting. This painting has been ruined by a bunch of morons." The professor's problem: not only to remove the ages of dirt and mold, but also the layers of clumsy retouching brushed on by past restorers. "It's extremely simple," he says. "You just scratch until you reach the real Leonardo." Then, smiling behind his spectacles, he adds: "The only difficulty lies in knowing exactly when to stop."

Scraping one tiny area at a time, Pelliccioli started his monumental job on the 13 1/4-by-29 1/4-ft.surface almost two years ago. His main guide was a faithful copy of the Last Supper painted by a follower named Andrea Solario in 1520, only 22 years after Leonardo had finished the mural. Solario's copy was destroyed during World War II, but Pelliccioli has a photograph of it and a vivid memory. First he took minute samplings of the surface where past restorers had painted on overlapping layers, then painstakingly scraped down to the original, finally swabbed over Leonardo's faded paint with a clear shellac fixative.

The changes were amazing. Flaking away five layers of paint applied "by restorers since the 16th century, the professor found that St. Bartholomew's sleeve, before a dark, bilious green, was indeed a dark azure blue. That was just the beginning. On Judas' blue tunic, ancient Arabic lettering appeared in gold; Christ's robe changed from a dirty lime color to vermilion, his mantle became bluer, its folds draped more gracefully. The dingy tablecloth lost its tattletale grey, and in the background, the blue waters of a cool lake took shape.

Professor Pelliccioli knows that no restoration can bring Leonardo's Last Supper back to its original brilliance. It is too far gone for that. But Italy's experts think that the restoration job has brought the Last Supper closer to the original than it has been within the memory of living man. And what's more, says Restorer Pelliccioli, his special shellac skin ought to keep it that way as long as the wall stands up.

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