By Anne Leader
On 10 April 1500, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, was captured by Swiss troops and handed over to French forces at Novara. Prior to his flight from Milan in August 1499, Sforza had been a great patron of the arts, bringing Donato Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci to his court and commissioning numerous projects from them and others including the completion of the Dominican friary of Santa Maria delle Grazie with a new choir for his family’s tombs and a mural showing the Last Supper for its refectory.
Reference: E. S. Welch, et al. “Sforza.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press.
Ludovico Sforza, Pala Sforzesca, 1494 (detail)
Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis, Portrait of Ludovico Sforza
Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine (Ceclia Gallerani), 1489-90, Czartoryski Museum, Kraków
Lazzaretto Hospital, Milan, 1488-1513 (destroyed)
Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, Facade, Certosa, Pavia, after 1492
Donato Bramante, Choir of Santa Maria delle Grazie, after 1492
Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, 1495-98, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan