Depicting the Bread of the Last Supper: Religious Representation in Italian Renaissance Society

Abstract

Prior to about 1500 most depictions of the Last Supper in Western art showed unleavened bread on the table, but since then leavened bread has usually been shown. This change involved the abandonment of what was understood at the time to be a historically-accurate representation of the Last Supper, in favor of a historically inaccurate one. The present article examines the combination of artistic, religious, and social factors that made this development uncontroversial when it occurred and that allowed it to persist during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation period when many aspects of religious art became subject to rigorous control.