Lionardo’s works in painting during his residence in Milan were by no means numerous, owing to the quantity and variety of his occupations. The portraits of Cecilia Gallerani and Lucrezia Crivelli, done in the earlier part of this period, received unbounded praises from the poets of the day. A picture of the Virgin and Child, St. John, and St. Michael, now in the possession of the Sanvitali family of Parma, is dated 1492. The portraits of Lodovico Sforza, his wife and family, were painted on the wall of the refectory in the Convent delle Grazie, where the Last Supper was afterwards painted. These portraits faded, owing to the damp of the wall, soon after they were done. Other works, in the same place, are mentioned by some writers as having been done on canvass, but they all perished from the same cause. A colossal Madonna, painted on a wall at the villa of Vaprio, belonging to the Melzi family, still exists, but it was much injured during the last occupation of Milan by the French. The paintings on the walls of the castle of Milan were destroyed by invaders of the same nation, in 1499. Various portraits, and a half figure of St. John, are preserved in the Ambrosian Library. In 1496, Lionardo began his greatest work, the Last Supper, in the refectory of the Convent delle Grazie: it was painted on the wall in oil, to which circumstance Lanzi, and others who have followed him, attribute its premature decay. But had it been in fresco, it would probably have suffered as much, since that part of Milan, where the convent stands, has frequently been subject to inundations; and so late as 1800, the floor, or rather ground, of the refectory, was several feet under water for a considerable time. The walls have thus been never free from damp: fifty years only after the picture was painted, Armenini describes it as half decayed. Vasari found it indistinct and faded. Later writers speak of it as a ruined work; and in 1652, the friars of the convent showed how worthless it was considered, by cutting a door through the wall, and thus destroyed the lower extremities of some of the figures. In 1726, a painter, named Bellotti, was unfortunately commissioned to restore it, and it appears that he almost covered the work of Lionardo with his own. The dampness, however, soon reduced the whole to its former faded state; and the next restorer, one Mazza, in 1770, actually scraped the wall (from which the original colour was chipping) to have a smooth surface to paint on, and even passed a coat of colour over the figures before he began his operations. Three heads were saved from his retouchings; but it must be evident that very little of the original work can be visible in any part. Bonaparte ordered that the place should not be put to military uses; but his commands were not attended to in his absence, and the refectory was long used as a stable. The building however was finally repaired, and, as far as possible, secured from damp.