What’s in common between Leonardo Da Vinci and La Classe?
If it seems to you that organizing a dinner party according to all the rules, including the design of invitations, decoration, table setting, guests placement, this is a simple and understandable thing, perhaps what you read now will change your opinion.
It will be about Leonardo Da Vinci and about the time when he has served at the court of Lodovico Moro.
Once Leonardo receives an assignment to organize a party and successfully copes with it, after which the duke asks him once again to do such a favor, then again and again.
The genius will work for 13 years as a master of court balls. His competence will include the manufacture and placement of street decorations, the decoration of city squares, the design of the castle decorations, table setting.
As we know, one of the most famous images of The Last Supper ( L’Ultima Cena ) belong to Leonardo.
In 1495, at the request of the same Lodovico Sforza, the artist began to paint a mural on the wall of the refectory of the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria del Grazie in Milan which will become one of the peaks of his career.
In art, there are not so many difficult compositional problems as the problem of placing thirteen people at a straight table. Leonardo easily changes the traditional construction of the scene: in contrast to its previous interpretations, where Judas is presented sitting separately from the others, he portrayed all thirteen participants in the event next to each other at the table.
This is where the experience of the ball organizer comes in handy.
Leonardo also expands the «menu» of the last meal of Christ. In addition, he portrays some more gastronomic details, such as table setting. What is not surprising! Table setting was one of Da Vinci’s favorite hobbies.
Speaking of Leonardo, it is impossible not to mention his other masterpiece. A picture that is known as priceless. «I managed to create a picture of a truly divine.» — He spoke about the portrait of Mona Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.
This is what Vasari writes about this work: “Since Mona Lisa was very beautiful, Leonardo resorted to the following trick: while writing a portrait, he invited musicians who played the lyre and sang, and jesters who constantly kept her in a cheerful mood.”
All this so that melancholy does not distort the features of her face.
As we see, nothing passes for nothing. Sign up for La Classe Table Etiquette classes.
Let’s study together the art of table setting, table placementm table service, indulge in a work worthy of genius.
With every good wish,
La Classe team
