Pietro Annigoni: The Last Supper

"The Last Supper" by Pietro Annigoni

"By 16th November, 1974, I had completed all of the fresco above the level of the table top, which, of course, included the heads and torsos of Christ and all the Disciples. Relief at having brought the work so far in a reasonably short time was overshadowed by some doubts about the quality of the wall. It was a very old wall and I had to hold my breath and wait for several months until the new plaster dried completely before I could be sure that it was entirely sound and free of treacherous saltpetre.

My fears for the wall were unfounded. The drying process went on at the desired snail's pace throughout the winter and when I returned in March to continue the work, all was well. After twenty-five days, on 15th April 1975, the fresco was finished. Elation ought surely to have followed, but my diary tells a different story: 

'I have finished 'The Last Supper'. But if I can say now that this, too, has been done, I say it with melancholy and not without a feeling of frustration. I don't know, in truth, if I had been expecting more approval from others or from myself.' 

In the middle of September it was unveiled and consecrated by the Bishop of Pescia. It was quite an exciting occasion and a big crowd gathered in the square outside the church where the band from a nearby village was playing. Senator Fanfani, who had shown interest in the fresco from the beginning and had spent some time watching me at work, turned up unexpectedly with his wife. The sun shone and a hot wind was blowing. Inside the packed church, where film and television crews were recording the ceremony by the light of their own enormously powerful light, the heat built up to such an intolerable level that I thought I was going to faint.

I have to confess that there were moments during the ceremony and the consecration service when my mind, and sometimes my eyes, wandered up to the dome high overhead, and I experienced a strange feeling of combined thrill and fear at the thought that I had committed myself to paint a fresco up there. It was to be a Pentecost, and at the end of the day, when I was at home again, I made my first sketch for it in my diary."

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)