COPIES OF THE LAST SUPPER OF DA VINCI.

The great loss of the original picture is in some measure compensated by several excellent copies, some of which are by Lionardo’s most eminent disciples; the best are, that by Marco Uggione, at the Carthusians of Pavia; another in the Refectory of the Franciscans at Lugano, by Bernardino Luini; and one in La Pace at Milan, by Gio. Paolo Lomazzo. Fuseli, lecturing on the copy by Marco Uggione, says, “the face of the Saviour is an abyss of thought, and broods over the immense revolution in the economy of mankind, which throngs inwardly on his absorbed eye—as the Spirit creative in the beginning over the water’s darksome wave—undisturbed and quiet. It could not be lost in the copy before us; how could its sublime expression escape those who saw the original? It has survived the hand of time in the study which Lionardo made in crayons, exhibited with most of the attendant heads in the British Gallery, and even in the feeble transcripts of Pietro Testa. I am not afraid of being under the necessity of retracting what I am going to advance, that neither during the splendid period immediately subsequent to Lionardo, nor in those which succeeded to our own time, has a face of the Redeemer been produced, which, I will not say equalled, but approached Lionardo’s conception, and in quiet and simple features of humanity, embodied divine, or what is the same, incomprehensible and infinite powers.” In 1825, Prof. Phillips examined the remains of this picture, and says, “Of the heads, there is not one untouched, and many are totally ruined. Fortunately, that of the Saviour is the most pure, being but faintly retouched; and it presents, even yet, a most perfect image of the Divine character. Whence arose the story of its not having been finished, is now difficult to conceive, and the history itself varies among the writers who have mentioned it. But perhaps a man so scrupulous as Lionardo da Vinci, in the definement of character and expression, and so ardent in his pursuit of them, might have expressed himself unsatisfied, where all others could only see perfection.”