SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGIOLI CHURCH - LUGANO
Bernardino Luini’s Passion - the Last Supper of Lugano

The Chiesa Santa Maria Degli Angioli (Church of Saint Mary of the Angels) in Lugano Switzerland, from the outside is a fairly plain and unimpressive Renaissance church of Romanesque style. A few steps from the shore of Lake Lugano on the square of Piazza Luini, rather crowded by other buildings, inside a stunning surprise. Once the abbey of a Franciscan Monastery, begun in 1490 and consecrated in 1515, the church was divided into two parts with two separate chapels and altars, one for the people and the other for the monks and priests. The monastery was disbanded in 1848 during Switzerland’s civil war and turned into a hotel which shared a common wall with the church. Fallen into disuse and disrepair, it wasn’t until the 1920’s that a restoration project uncovered extraordinary frescos which had been hidden behind wood paneling.

The two sections of the church are divided by a wall with arches to the inner chapel. The Italian Renaissance artist Bernardino Luini, who was born in a small town on the nearby Lake Maggiore had been making his mark painting in Milan, where many of his works – noted for his very feminine women, often depicted with eyes casting downward nearly closed can be found, was engaged in 1529 to decorate the church and monastery. Luini painted a grand and intricate depiction of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ in glorious colors from wall to wall framed under the supporting arch of the church. He added the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, graphically pierced by arrows. Luini even added himself to the scene, his face can be found on the man riding a horse, above the figure of a young St John with his hand to his heart, depicted with long golden hair, the other hand outstretched as if reaching for another.

The church has later Baroque art by a local artist depicting cities and towns of the area as well as Jerusalem, but more fascinating, on the side south side wall of the Chiesa Santa Maria Degli Angioli is Luini's version of the Last Supper. In lesser condition than the passion fresco, the Last Supper is no less fascinating. It is divided into three panels because it had originally been on a wall of the monastery rectory with support pillars, moved to where it is now seen when the monastery. Bearing close examination, Luini’s version of this event is so like Leonardo DaVinci’s more famous one in Milan that it was once attributed to him. There is little historical connection between the two artists but it is thought that Luini was a disciple of the master or at least greatly influenced in his later work by him. Luini’s "Last Supper" may have been an homage, a coded response or even a parody. Luini painted himself as Judas Iscariot holding a bag on coins and his own favorite pet cat at his feet.

A close look at the figure of the Apostle John, at the right hand of Christ will bring sharply to mind Dan Brown's “The DaVinci Code” whose entire plot is based on the idea that DaVinci had symbolically painted Mary Magdalene into his last supper in the guise of the John the Apostle. Luini’s John is also feminine in the extreme, so like Luini’s other female subjects, painted with eyes nearly closed, as if in supplicant devotion, but Luini’s John the Apostle, rather than facing away in DaVinci’s now infamous “M”, is leaning tenderly on Jesus.

It has been long reasoned by art historians that young boys were painted as effeminate in Renaissance Italian religious art, but one wonder if some of this comes from the various feminine images of a devotional John. Luini's apostles hold their hands in rather distinct gestures, perhaps his own secret code. Very little is known of Luini’s personal life, though he managed to paint himself into three of the frescos here, either a supreme egoist with a sense of irony or projecting a code of his own. He died just two years later in 1532, so his Last Supper may be Bernardino Luini’s last word on the subject. To see Leonardo DaVinci's Last Supper in Milan take advance ticketing reservations and long lines. There are no lines or tickets to see Luini's Supper or marvel at his passion in Lugano. © Bargain Travel Europe

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