The Church and Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie were erected in 1465-82 following designs by Guiniforte Solari. The site’s original architectonic layout, now only visible in the form of the nave and aisles, is a representative example of Late Gothic Lombard style. The nave and two-aisle interior with side chapels followed the traditional composition, as well as Renaissance innovative elements, such as the columns replacing pilasters and the pictorial decoration of the nave. From 1490, the duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza initiated important architectonic transformations, following an effort to make the church his family mausoleum.

Duke Ludovico Sforza attracted the best artists to his court; Bramante was entrusted with constructing an apse to replace Solari's presbytery, while da Vinci was commissioned to produce the ‘Last Supper’. Cristoforo Solari was to sculpt the cover of the tomb for Ludovico and his wife Beatrice. Sforza’s project, which envisaged the replacement of the facade, nave and aisles, was not completed prior to the death of Beatrice in 1497 and the fall of his regime in 1499. However, by that time, the apse, the sacristy and ‘Last Supper’ were already finished. These pieces are significant examples of Renaissance Milan, despite damage caused by the 1943 bombing, which devastated the library and cloister.

The ‘Cenacolo’, the common name given to the place where Leonardo painted his ‘Last Supper’, is an exceptional mid-15th-century artistic masterpiece of Renaissance Milan. The rectangular Refectory Hall, is decorated by two enormous paintings, complied with the religious traditions of the Dominican order - a crucifixion by Donato Montorfano, painted on the northern and southern wall and linked by a frieze of garlands, supporting pages of bible quotations. These depictions include portraits of monks and saints, also attributed to Donato Montorfano, which are badly damaged by the bombing. The wall with the ‘Last Supper’ was saved because of sandbagging it.

The commission for the ‘Last Supper’ is reminded by the coat of arms which can be seen within plant garlands surrounding the four lunettes above the masterpiece. The ‘Last Supper’ took Leonardo around four years to complete, between 1494 and 1498, with his tempera technique. Although the Last Supper was a traditional subject for decorating a convent refectory, Leonardo da Vinci presented the theme in an entirely innovative form, making important changes to the scene’s layout and endowing the piece with realism.