Christmas Comes Early, Last Supper Lovers

The Italian imaging firm HAL9000 (the same wonderful people who brought us the Pozzi masterpieces) have launched a 16 billion pixel digital scan of Leonardo's Last Supper online. It is spectacular. Seriously, spectacular; go and zoom in on it for yourself and see. This is the link to the scan. Now anyone on the planet with an Internet connection can - and should - scrutinize the mural to his or her heart's content. In an article from the CBC a spokesman for HAL9000 had this to say:

The firm's general manager, Vincenzo Mirarchi, told Reuters that he expected a few million visitors would check out the image, the original of which draws thousands of tourists to the Santa Maria delle Grazie church and convent in Milan.

Me? I say a "few million" visitors is short-hitting thinking, Signor Mirarchi. You're conceptually sacrifice bunting when you should be at least knocking out a stand-up home run. It'll be more like a "kajillion bizillion" visitors, methinks. Just wait until your servers crash repeatedly. Then you'll see, Vincenzo.

So, go crazy, art lovers. Conspiracy theorists, you look your heads off, too. Find new New Stuff! And this time don't tell me about it, all right? Your About.com Art History Guide is anxious to be done talking about the Last Supper, much as it's been great and all that. In fact, I keenly look forward to the day that I can write an "X is the New Y" headline ... here meaning "ANY Other Painting is the New Last Supper." Fingers crossed The Battle of Anghiari is uncovered ...