LEONARDO AND THE FACE OF JUDAS Alessandro Finzi When Leonardo was working in Milan, mainly in 1485, he produced a series of drawings representing deformed images known as grotesques. Regardless of these and checking all possible images, only one face appears at least as being very uncommon. It is represented in the Cenacle and it is immediately recognized as Judas’s (figure 1) 1 . Fig. 1. Leonardo, Last Supper (part.) It is possible to observe that: 1. - The head of Judas, if compared with those of the other apostles, appears as having clearly reduced dimensions, at the limits of microcephaly. In fact, the facial surface of Judas is only 51.6% of the one of Peter who is at his shoulders while, being in the foreground, it should appear wider according to the effect of perspective; 2. - The facial surface of Judas appears very narrow in comparison with Peter’s. In Judas the distance from the top of the forehead to the ear lobe is 29.6% shorter than in Peter's; 3. - The reduction in head size can also be detected by the disproportion with respect to the bust and it appears, instead of being connected, simply resting on the neck, and this peculiarity, as will be shown, can be explained; 4. - The profile is snub nosed, or "simio" ("monkey profile", according to the terminology in use at the time). The profile is accentuated by the prolongation of the short beard; 5. - The complexion is decidedly dark, in evident contrast with the light one of Christ and the other apostles; The same considerations, including the one related to the darker complexion, can be made looking at the many copies of the masterpiece. 1 Among the most ancient copies which reproduce the physiognomic features of Judas in the leonardesque original we can mention Andrea Solario (1509 ca.) in the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerois in Paris; Gianpietrino (1515-20) in the Certosa of Pavia; Antonio della Corna (beginning of the 16th century) in the basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore in Milan; anonymous of the 16th century in the Da Vinci Museum of Tongarle in Antwerp; Milanese anonymous of the 16th century in the Pinacoteca of Brera in Milan; Antonio Paolo Lomazzo (1561) in the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Milan.