Santa Maria delle Grazie
In Santa Maria delle Grazie—once a Dominican convent and church in Milan—its defining legacy was not a façade or fresco program, but the refectory mural of Leonardo da Vinci’s *The Last Supper*, later recognized as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The project began when Duke Francesco I Sforza ordered a new convent and church on the site of an earlier chapel dedicated to Marian devotion; Guiniforte Solari designed the Gothic nave, completed by 1469. The church’s purpose deepened under Duke Ludovico Sforza, who chose it as the Sforza family burial site; the cloister and apse were completed after 1490, and his wife Beatrice was buried there in 1497. Artistic life continued: in 1543, a Titian altarpiece for the Chapel of the Holy Crown—depicting Christ receiving the crown of thorns—was installed, then looted in 1797 by French troops and is now in the Louvre. …
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