The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Refectory of St. Maria delle Grazie in Milan, has a very tormented history. The particular technique adopted by the artist, a dry tempera on a stucco background, made the first restorations necessary a few decades after its realization. In 1999 the masterpiece came back to life in its original colors, thanks to a meticulous restoration that lasted over twenty years.
On that occasion, the new lighting system was conceived, for which the photometry laboratory of the Istituto Elettrotecnico Galileo Ferraris drew up the project specifications. The location of the luminaires was constrained by distribution requirements and are hidden behind the barrier for the public, parallel to the wall; the distance between the wall and the luminaires was very close compared to the height of the wall that had to be illuminated. Special luminaires were therefore designed and manufactured, with a double reflector optical scheme, capable of providing a strongly marked asymmetrical emission, thus ensuring the necessary uniformity of illuminance on the vertical surface.
The luminaires were dismantled in 2015 to be replaced by an LED system.