The Florentine School and the Portrayal of Male Youth

After explaining this in many individual emails, it was time to (mentally, at least) dope-smack myself and write an article. So many of us have become fixated on the feminine appearance of John, in Leonardo's Last Supper that we often miss, pardon the pun, the Big Picture - which is that the Florentine School was quite fond of sticking feminine features on male youth, for reasons with which we may or may not agree. Since I am as guilty as the next person of blindly expecting everyone to just take my word for things, included is a nice long list of images that speak for themselves. You'll note in many other Florentine versions of the Last Supper (beginning with Giotto) a baby-faced John is seated next to Christ, if not collapsed upon His bosom - or the table - in a dead faint.