A Última Ceia

The Council of Trent had closed in 1563, and one of its instructions to painters was that sacred pictures be clear and decent, with nothing in them to distract the faithful. Tintoretto painted this for the confraternity of the Sacrament at San Trovaso, a parish body of ordinary Venetians who paid for the chapel it still hangs in, and he gave them a supper that looks like their own. The table is low and almost square, the apostles slump and lean around it, one on the right eats off his lap, and a chair lies on its side underneath as if someone had got up in a hurry. In 1573 the Inquisition summoned Veronese to explain the dogs and dwarfs he had put into a picture of the same subject. Tintoretto's canvas never moved, and the Washing of the Feet beside it is a copy, the original now in London.