Santa Maria delle Grazie was founded in 1463 as a Dominican church and convent under the patronage of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. It was expanded in the 1490s under Ludovico Sforza, who commissioned Donato Bramante to add the Renaissance apse, dome, and cloister. Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper in the refectory between 1495 and 1498. The complex was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 — one of the rare cases where both a building and a painting inside it share the designation.
The story of Santa Maria delle Grazie spans five and a half centuries: a Dominican friary commissioned by a duke who died before seeing it finished, expanded by a son who was deposed and died in a French prison, decorated by the most versatile genius of the Renaissance, bombed in 1943, and eventually recognised by the United Nations as a site of outstanding universal value.
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Santa Maria delle Grazie was founded on 29 September 1463 by the Dominican friar Fra Domenico Garrone, with the patronage of Francesco I Sforza, Duke of Milan. The Sforza family paid for the construction of a church and convent on land in the Porta Vercellina district of Milan (the present-day Magenta neighbourhood). Construction began under the direction of Guiniforte Solari, the Sforza court architect.
The church that Solari designed and built is the Gothic nave that still exists — three aisles, ribbed vaulting, brick construction typical of Lombard Gothic. It was completed during the pontificate of Francesco’s successor, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, and then further developed under Galeazzo’s son Ludovico, known as ‘il Moro’ (the Moor).
In the 1490s, Ludovico Sforza commissioned Donato Bramante to transform Santa Maria delle Grazie into a dynastic mausoleum — the intended burial church for the Sforza family. Bramante demolished the existing flat-ended chancel and replaced it with a polygonal apse, a drum-and-dome structure over the crossing (the tiburio), and a cloister. He also began a large tribune connecting the nave to the apse. The expansion transformed the modest Dominican church into a landmark of the Italian Renaissance.
Bramante’s work at Santa Maria delle Grazie is considered among his most significant contributions to Italian architecture. He later moved to Rome, where he designed the first plans for the new St. Peter’s Basilica — but the Milanese commissions remain central to his legacy.
Book This TourLeonardo da Vinci arrived in Milan in 1482 in the service of Ludovico Sforza. He worked for the Sforza court for nearly two decades as painter, sculptor, military engineer, and court entertainer. The commission for The Last Supper — the refectory mural for the Dominican convent — came from Ludovico in approximately 1494 or 1495.
Leonardo worked on the painting between 1495 and 1498, using his experimental tempera-on-dry-plaster technique rather than traditional fresco. The painting was completed and immediately admired. Within 20 years, it had begun to deteriorate.
For the full story of the painting itself — its technique, its symbolism, and its restoration — see our Last Supper painting guide.
In 1499, the French army under Louis XII invaded Milan. Ludovico Sforza fled and was subsequently captured. He died in French captivity in 1508, never having been buried at Santa Maria delle Grazie as he had intended. His wife Beatrice d’Este, who had died in 1497 during childbirth aged 21, was initially buried at the church, but her remains were later moved to the Certosa di Pavia.
The Sforza dynastic mausoleum project was never completed. Santa Maria delle Grazie became a Dominican convent church rather than a royal chapel.
In 1652, the monks cut a doorway through the south wall of the refectory to create a more convenient passage between kitchen and dining hall. The lower section of The Last Supper — the feet of Jesus and the apostles — was destroyed in the process. The doorway was later bricked up, but the damage to the painting was permanent.
The Napoleonic suppression of religious orders in the early 19th century transformed Santa Maria delle Grazie from an active convent into a partially secularised building. The refectory, no longer used for Dominican communal meals, became accessible to the public as a museum space.
Several early restoration attempts on The Last Supper during the 18th and 19th centuries — including overpaintings intended to fill gaps and revive faded colours — caused additional damage that later restorers would spend decades removing.
Book This TourOn 15 August 1943, an Allied aerial bombing raid hit the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, destroying the roof and three of the four walls. The north wall — bearing The Last Supper — remained standing, protected by sandbags, mattresses, and scaffolding that museum staff had installed in anticipation of raids. The refectory was open to the sky for three years while reconstruction was carried out.
Photographs taken after the bombing show the refectory as a roofless ruin with The Last Supper still visible on the surviving north wall. The preservation of the painting in these circumstances is partly miraculous and partly the result of deliberate protection by museum staff who anticipated the raids and took precautions.
The most significant restoration of The Last Supper began in 1978 under the direction of Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, an Italian art restorer. The project took 21 years. Restorers worked under microscopes to remove centuries of overpainting — layers added by well-meaning but destructive earlier interventions — and to stabilise what remained of Leonardo’s original surface.
The restoration was completed in 1999. The result is what visitors see today: a painting that is far more damaged than people expect, but whose remaining original surface is more accurately preserved than at any point since the 17th century.
In 1980, UNESCO designated Santa Maria delle Grazie a World Heritage Site under the description ‘Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie with The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci’. The dual designation — for both the architectural complex and the specific painting inside it — is unusual within the World Heritage system and reflects the extraordinary convergence of two Renaissance geniuses (Bramante and Leonardo) in a single site.
Construction began in 1463 under the patronage of Francesco Sforza. The Gothic nave was completed in the 1470s under Guiniforte Solari. The Renaissance apse, dome, and cloister were added by Donato Bramante in the 1490s under Ludovico Sforza.
Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint The Last Supper in approximately 1494–95. Leonardo worked on the painting between 1495 and 1498.
In 1980, under the designation ‘Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie with The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci’.
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