When the Duke of Milan, Lodovico Sforza, com­mis­sioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint a de­pic­tion of the Last Sup­per on a re­fec­tory wall of the Do­mini­can con­vent, Santa Maria delle Gra­zie, he could not have dreamed of the ways in which the paint­ing would cap­ture the imag­i­na­tion of not just aca­d­e­mic schol­ars but the mass pub­lic over five hun­dred years after its cre­ation.