Who commissioned Leonardo to paint The Last Supper?

Ludovico Sforza commissioned Leonardo to paint The Last Supper.

Sforza, Duke of Milan and commonly known as Ludovico il Moro, sponsored the mural as part of renovations to the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. He planned for the church complex to function as a Sforza family mausoleum, so the painting had both religious and dynastic significance.

Leonardo worked on the mural from roughly 1495 to 1498 in the convent’s refectory. The commission called for a traditional Last Supper scene, but Leonardo transformed it into a dramatic study of human reactions at the moment Jesus announces that one apostle will betray him.

Ludovico was Leonardo’s principal Milanese patron, but he did not paint the work and was not its subject. Isabella d’Este was another important Renaissance patron, while Lorenzo de’ Medici ruled Florence and Pope Alexander VI belonged to the papal court in Rome. None of them commissioned this mural.