Leonardoda Vincin the face of it, The Last Supper is just one of about eleventy-zillion painting depicting Jesus Christ and his Apostles enjoying their last big shindig before the centurions arrive for the opening act of the Crucifixion. Admittedly, its a pretty good version of the tableaux, and its an unusually big one at 29 feet wide, painted on the wall of a Milanese convent. Leonardo painted The Last Supper over the course of three years, working at the behest of his patron, the Duke of Milan. Artistically, The Last Supper is exceptional - and for several hundred years, that was all anyone had to say about, except for Its not holding up very well, is it? The painting was made using an experimental new technique, which was unfortunately not very durable. Numerous restorations have been attempted over the centuries, with varying degrees of success. After Leos death, The Last Supper became the object of a bizarre 20th century fetish cult that believes there are secret messages hidden in every square inch of wall. At first the province of obscure scholars and authors, these theories slowly ballooned into the public eye, culminating in the publication of The Da Vinci Code, a 2003 best-seller that lifted elements from a dozen ancient conspiracy theories, including tales of the Knights Templar, the Cathars, and the Holy Grail. The theory propounded by the book - that Jesus didnt die on the cross, but in fact survived to father a line of French kings - is not terribly outrageous, but its also not proven. The major plot point of the code is based on analysis of the paintings tiniest details, which happen to loom rather large when you view the picture at its original 27-foot width. The connection between da Vinci and the Jesus bloodline was first outlined in the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, whose authors have sued the publisher of The da Vinci Code for plagiarism. According to the authors, Leonardo was the Grand Master of a secret society protecting the secret of Jesus escape from the cross. A popular variation on the theory proposes that Leonardo may have been responsible for forging the Shroud of Turin, although the historical evidence for that claim is as sketchy as any other part of this mass of theories. While the Jesus bloodline theory is actually pretty interesting, and not completely outside the realm of possibility, the da Vinci part of the premise is the weakest from an educated perspective. Virtually no one with a shred of credibility believes The Last Supper is Leonardos coded message from beyond the grave about the paternity of Christ. (Then again, during Leonardos life, virtually no one with a shred of credibility believed the earth was round, either.) Anyway, after several successful years in Milan, da Vinci returned in triumph to Florence, where he was hailed as a conquering artistic hero. Leo traded up the Duke of Milan for a new patron, Cesar Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI. While da Vinci continued to work his artistic magic, Borgia wasnt interested in pretty pictures so much as he was in war and strategy. da Vinci, who had always been a dabbler in science and engineering, was teamed with Niccol Machiavelli, who lived in Florence at the time, to execute an elaborate plan for building a strategic canal system. The plan was a bust, but Macchiavelli and da Vinci remained friends. A highlight of da Vincis second stint in Florence was a much-anticipated paint battle in which da Vinci and Michelangelo were to create murals on facing walls in a city plaza. The battle royale ended in a no-contest. Both artists were notorious for not finishing their works, and they lived up to their respective reputations. During this period, da Vinci finished his other enduring masterpiece, La Gioconda - the joyful one, or as it is known in English, the Mona Lisa. These days, its taken as an established fact that the Mona Lisas expression holds some sort of secret, that she wears an enigmatic smile. This interpretation of the painting, however, is fairly recent, first being made by art historian Walter Pater in 1873. In his book The Rennaisance, Pater wrote the following purple passage on the painting: La Gioconda is, in the truest sense, Leonardos masterpiece. . We all know the face and hands of the figure, set in its marble chair, in that circle of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under sea. . The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all the ends of the world are come, and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which