Museum of the Cenacolo by Andrea del Sarto in Florence

Beyond the Campo di Marte station, in the San Salvi area, lies one of the greatest masterpieces of the sixteenth century: the Last Supper by Andrea del Sarto, the "painter without errors", painted between 1511 and 1530.
Andrea del Sarto was twenty-five years old when he began working on the fresco in the refectory of the Church of San Michele in San Salvi, founded in 1048 by Vallombrosan monks. The church is famous today mainly for two reasons: the massacre of the monks of San Salvi by the simoniac bishop Pietro Mezzabarba, which occurred between 1065 and 1066, and for the wonderful sixteenth-century works found inside.
Among these we find works by Pontormo such as Faith and Charity, on the opposite side of the refectory, The Madonna with child enthroned between Saint Francis, Saint Zanobi and two kneeling donors, by Raffaellino del Garbo, one of Andrea's masters, a group of paintings by Plautilla Nelli (1524–1588), an important painter of the sixteenth century and many others.

The great masterpiece, however, is Andrea del Sarto's Cenacolo, on which the painter began working starting from the under arch. Here he paints five tondos with the Trinity in the centre, San Giovanni Gualberto and San Salvi on the left, San Benedetto and San Bernardo degli Uberti on the right.
Alternating the cicles is a grotesque decoration in monochrome white on a yellow background probably painted by Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini, who later also decorated the Cappella dei Priori in Palazzo Vecchio.
Shortly after 1511 the construction work on the new wing of the monastery was interrupted and so was the painter's work, which resumed around 1526 and concluded in about a year.
The work was celebrated immediately, and legend has it that the troops sent by the Republic in 1529 to destroy the buildings outside the walls to prevent the troops besieging Florence from finding refuge there, were so struck by its beauty that they did not touch the church.
Andrea took inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper and therefore from the life study of workshop assistants in order to recreate the expressions that characterize the various characters.
The work is in fact characterized by psychological subtlety, there are no dramas or exasperated attitudes, but every gesture is studied and expresses an emotion.
The color is bright and very different from that of tradition.All this contributes to making it one of the great masterpieces of the sixteenth century.
Despite this, the Museum of the Cenacolo by Andrea del Sarto is not much visited as it is located off the tourist routes of the historic center, although very close. For this reason, the experience of observing this masterpiece in an often almost empty room is absolutely not to be missed!