Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games - Olympic Day 6 (Milan)

February 12

Sorry, as always, we're slowly falling behind. Being sick didn't help anything, but it is now the evening of February 13th. We hope that you will enjoy this very long post.

Today, we are off to see Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper. This picture, painted by Da Vinci between 1495-1498, was painted in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. We couldn't buy ordinary tickets a month in advance, but it was possible to buy tickets by taking a guided tour. We are so glad that we went for this option!

After a nice conversation with a couple from Seattle who were attending their first Olympics as part of spending a month in Italy, a small, grey-haired woman arrived and said that she was the Linda that we were looking for. An assistant handed out electronic earphones so everyone could hear her. She said that everything at this site works on a tight schedule. Fifteen minutes before our start time, we go to the ticket office/Security to make sure that our tickets are valid and that we aren't carrying anything that we shouldn't be carrying. Then we meet outside the church:

She asked us if we noticed anything unusual about this church. When someone suggested that the back of the church didn't look like the front, she got a big smile on her face. "Esattamente" (exactly)!

She said that there was actually a small chapel called Mary of the Miracles here originally. Then, in 1469, the Dominican order wanted to build a monastery on the site. The chapel said that this was fine with them, as long as the Dominicans conserved the original chapel. The Dominicans build a relatively reserved church (it was only for a monastery after all). This was fine until 1490, when the Sforza adopted the church as their family church (the Sforza Castle is quite nearby). It would not do to have such a simple church. So, in 1490, Duke Ludovico Sforza commissioned the additions of the columns in the front and the main church in the back.  Here are a couple of pictures of the front:

Linda tells us that hiring Da Vinci to paint was another effort by Ludovico to "upgrade" his neighborhood church. Then it was time to enter to see The Last Supper. We enter the first of two airlocks used to keep the humidity/temperature/air quality constant to limit degradation of the painting. She showed us a picture from WW II. She said that Milan was bombed by the Allies and the church suffered a hit. But she said that the monks were really smart. The had built scaffolding around the walls of the refectory and then lined the walls with sandbags to protect the painting. Linda tells us that it was a miracle that it survived. She said that even so, only about 40% of the picture is original. A big problem was that the painting is in the monk's dining hall and on the other side of the wall that Da Vinci worked on was the kitchen. She also said that Da Vinci was trying to make what Linda called "Renaissance Virtual-Reality". What Da Vinci wanted to do required pain-staking effort and the normal method of painting frescos would not work. The oil-based painting started degrading almost as soon as Da Vinci finished it. Linda also said that the monks were very negative on the painting to start because they had lost the use of their lunchroom for nearly 4 years!

After a few minutes, we pass into a second airlock. From this, we can see part of the monastery:

Finally, the doors open for our 15 minutes with the painting. Here are a couple of pictures:

Note the use of perspective - you can see this best by looking at the tops of the black panels that point to the vanishing point and noting that the mountains in the background are much smaller. This had never been done before and was shockingly realistic to people who saw it. Linda tells us that nearly every monastery has a picture of the last supper on the north wall and the crucifixion on the south wall. Da Vinci went for reality because the wanted the monks to feel like Christ was right there with them in their lunchroom. On the table is food that would have been eaten by the monks and was definitely not eaten in the Middle East. He also broke the apostles into four groups of three while most paintings showed Judas by himself with the other apostles on the other side of Christ. Can you guess which one is Judas? He is the darker person in the front of the group in the second of the smaller pictures. Linda mentioned the book "The Da Vinci Code". One of the story points was that John the Younger (the younger person in the same photo as Judas is in) was really Mary. Linda said that this was ridiculous. John was only 14 years old at the time and the normal painting style was to paint young people as effeminate. But, she said, that book has been fantastic for tourism to see the painting! She also points to the ceiling:

The colored ceiling is the original. The white is the part that was destroyed by bombs. You can see what a miracle it was for the painting to survive! Another foot or two and it would have been gone forever.

Before our 15 minutes are up, we look at the painting on the opposite wall of the crucifixion, also painted by a master at nearly the same time:

By comparing the two, you can see how revolutionary Da Vinci's The Last Supper was! Our time is up, so we enter another airlock to go out. This one ended at the store (rule #1 - Always exit through the gift shop).

Our tour also includes a quick tour of the church next door. Linda pays a couple of euros so that we can turn on the lights inside for a few minutes. Here is the before and after:

There is also a big difference between the small chapels on the left and right sides of the church:

The ones on the right are elegantly decorated while the ones on the left are much simpler. Again, this is because the bombs. Ludovico completed the fancier part of the church because he wanted himself and his family to be buried there. You can see some of the differences between the rest of the church and the area that was supposed to house his vault on the inside:

The main part of the church was done using the traditional frescos, but the architect for the tomb area wanted to do something different. The artwork is actually carved into the walls! Unfortunately for Ludovico, his plan to be buried here failed. Ludovico, hoping to degrade the influence of the Medici family in Florence allied himself with King Charles VIII of France. He hoped that the French would keep Florence busy but not actually conquer them. He did not count on the Medici giving the French safe passage through their territory which allowed Charles VIII to attack Milan instead. Ludovico was captured and taken to Paris where he died. So the fancy tomb remains empty.

Outside the church, Linda shows us one more thing. Across the street is an older-style house. She said that Da Vinci was said to have lived in this house when he was in Milan and even had a small vineyard in the back. She said that she used to finish her tours with a glass of wine in the vineyard, but several years ago, a corporate beverage company bought the house, and tours are no longer allowed.

The final thing we did was get a picture of the UNESCO world-heritage sign:

We have plenty of time, so we decide to visit the Sforza castle. Linda said that Ludovico had built a tunnel between the church and the castle so that they could attend services without mixing with the riffraff. So we thought that the Sforza castle must be quite close. Maybe we just took a wrong turn, but it took us a while to get there. Inside is now mostly a museum, but because there is only floor space in the corners of the buildings, you have to keep going outside and back in somewhere else to see everything. We find one section with armor:

We are trying to find a section on musical instruments, but we end up in a section of what used to be the Milan museum which was moved here when this museum opened. We see a bunch of cabinets of different design. Here are a couple of our favorites:

The last area we visit is supposed to have some of Michelangelo's work. It turns out that there are really only two pieces: one that he was working on when he died and another a bust:

Then it is time to get going. We go back to the hotel briefly to grab a quick lunch and then head to the ice hockey arena to see Canada play Czechia. We are really excited, because our local star, 19-year-old Macklin Celebrini, is the youngest player on Team Canada. Like the Slovaks the night before, the Czech fans are here in big numbers. They even took the time to put up banners for their favorite players all around the bottom of the lower bowl:

You would think that this was a Czechia home game! But Canada was not worried. Unlike the Czechs, all of their players play in the NHL and every line features at least two legitimate stars. The Czechs played excellent defense the whole first period until Celebrini manages to deflect a shot into the net with less than 10 seconds left in the period:

Canada continues to apply pressures and ends up winning 5-0. Here are some pictures:

Steve has been feeling pretty bad all day (took a COVID test in the morning but was negative) and now Beth is starting to feel bad as well. So, we are happy that taking the shuttle buses back to the metro and the metro back to Vesta are without mishap. Time to try to get some sleep!

Tomorrow, we are supposed to see Slovakia and Italy in men's ice hockey, but we are having our doubts that we will feel up to it. Enjoy!