Historical Events  Art
Last supper

It's almost as if there's a code in there

Da Vinci's Last Supper is one of the most famous paintings of all time. Depicting Jesus and his Disciples breaking bread on that iconic evening, some have noticed a couple of odd things which sound like they came right out of a Tom Hanks movie.

First, there's no chalice on the table. Surely this would be present - it's the central part of the whole piece, where Jesus told them to drink from it to remember him.

 

The other odd thing are the glasses themselves. Painted around 1495, those drinking glasses appear to be the fine cut glass types you get from a modern glassware store, and not the crude goblets normally associated with the tableware of the day.

Other renderings of the last supper always place the chalice front and central. Some are saying they remember it as being the case with Da Vinci's work - are they experiencing the Mandela Effect?

Bread

Some report remembering a large loaf of bread on the table, which isn't there now, and also the bread rolls present look to be soehow different. It is known that the painting began to deteriorate  right after being painted, and has had several touch-ups over the centuries since. Also, there was an actual door cutinto it at the bottom about 150 years after painting, which can't have helped with it's preservation.

Code

Of course the lack of a chalice on the table is the heart of the story by Dan Brown in his novel The Da Vinci Code, where the Holy Grail turns out to be Mary Magdalene herself. Yet the mysteries surrounding the painting continue - some claim to remember an actual code, or numbers, hidden in the painting under the table, which are now nowhere to be seen.

There have been reproductions of the painting over the years, and recreations in theatre and movies. Some are saying these might have (incorrectly) had the chalice on the table, and caused this misremembering, but there is little evidence today of even that being the case.