The S'Upper Room

Exit Florence and we are amid olive trees and vines. Our direction is south.

Reaching a hilltop, we turn and cross the gate, slowly proceeding along the lane offering an interesting far view of the city of lilies resting in a cradle, with its Duomo dome at the center.

Here and there an iridescent-blue peacock shimmers through the forest. Roses, cypresses and gorgeous irises. The Chianti countryside is in bloom.

A little further, close to the slope of a natural amphitheater staging a strangely shaped cotto pool, a raised grove with pietra serena monolithic benches awaits us in silence. Certainly a former bosso grove, the place is said to host an underground labyrinth. Its two tunnel-gates are still visible. The elaborate excavations could date back to Renaissance, Middle Age or even Etruscan times..

We are strolling in a natural and somewhat overgrown tuscanian park-forest embelled with niches, stone paths and exotic trees, like sequoias and Japanese camphor.

The property, a huge stylish villa-palace with gardens, fountains, and mysterious buried rooms, used to be the summer residence, and later dwelling of exhile, of a renowned political philosopher, musician and poet of Renaissance times: Nicolò Machiavelli. Here he wrote The Prince.

Now, history lets us know that Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci were friends.

Leonardo must have visited the place, from time to time, for the two friends had been working together at a few projects. Then Leonardo must have spotted the room which he would subsequently use as a model for the chamber meant to host his remarkable representation of L'Ultima Cena, The Last Supper of our Lord.

The upper, large chamber in the front portion of our villa overlooking Florence looks immediately and strikingly familiar.

Many years ago, while noticing the similarity between the two rooms (Leonardo's and Nicolò's), we began to find, almost unwillingly, interesting information corroborating the theory.

The essay The S'Upper Room explores all such information, showing evidence of the inspiration source of our immortal master Leonardo da Vinci for the creation of the ambience for his masterpiece The Last Supper, Il Cenacolo vinciano hosted in Milan.

The S'Upper Room

In the Chianti region of Italy, not far from the city of lilies, Florence, the room that served as a model for Leonardo Da Vinci's famous Last Supper has been found...