It’s known the world over. One of the greatest creations in Italian art. And it’s crumbling. Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece “The Last Supper” went through a painstaking restoration that concluded in 1999. But even if you get  to Milan to view it, you may wait in line a while. Twenty five visitors are admitted every 15 minutes to see the painting, only 320,000 visitors a year. The demand is three to four times higher, but no more visitors can be accommodated because of efforts to preserve the painting.

Now you can save yourself the airfare and the waiting in line. Leonardo’s masterpiece is available in “hi def”. A sixteen billion pixel image is now online. The resolution allows experts to examine details of the 15th century painting that they otherwise would not – including traces of drawings Leonardo put down before painting.

Here’s the link. You’ll need Adobe flash player 9 to view it. Enjoy.

Shawn from Sonoma was our winner of tickets to the SF Choral Society concert November 17th. He surmised that the camel hair brush was invented by a Mr. Camel. The other choices; A: it was made of camel hair B: one used it to groom camels (from what I know of them they wouldn’t stand for it).

Ernst Von Dohnanyi’s “Veil of Pierette” was our Blind Date piece today from the year they first dropped the ball on Times Square to welcome the New Year…of 1908. Watch video of the new ball for 2008 here.

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