Leonardo’s Last Supper: Earthly and Divine Dining Presented by Professor Joseph C. Forte at New Canaan Library

Following the exhibition of renowned photographer Ahmet Ertuğ’s magnificent, large scale triptych photograph of The Last Supper, New Canaan Library continues to commemorate the 500-year anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death with targeted events and lectures.

On Thursday evening, March 12^th, the Library is pleased to welcome Joseph C. Forte, PhD, Chair of Art History, Sarah Lawrence College for a unique examination and discussion of Leonardo’s masterpiece from a gastronomical, as well as a theological, perspective. The evening begins with a light reception at 6:30 p.m., followed immediately by the lecture.

The Last Supper is a standard subject in Christian Art. It commemorates the final shared meal of Christ and his Apostles and the foundation of Catholic rituals like the Mass and the Eucharist.   But it is also a meal – and Leonardo’s famous Last Supper in Milan uses the meal to say a great deal about realism in art, both visual and social, and on theology in art through food and cuisine.   “Leonardo’s Last Supper: Earthly and Divine Dining,” explore Leonardo’s transformation of salt, fish and fruit into a profound language of sacrifice, spirit and symbol.

Joseph Forte holds the Esther Raushenbush Chair For Distinguished Teaching at Sarah Lawrence where he has taught since 1978 and has been the chair of the Art History Department for well, just a long time. He has published and lectured widely on the Art of Sixteenth Century Italy and Seventeenth Century Europe.   He is currently working on a project involving a re - identification of a Botticelli fresco in the Sistine Chapel as a Speculum papalis or Mirror of the Life of Pope Sixtus IV.