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For the end wall of their refectory the Franciscans commissioned Taddeo Gaddi to paint a Last Supper, an appropriate subject for the friars' dining hall. Above the last Supper Gaddi painted a Tree of Life, a devotional subject derived from the writings of the Franciscan St Bonaventure.To reinforce both its Franciscan and refectory context, the mystical tree is surrounded by a depiction of St Francis's stigmatisation and the upper left and three holy events that take palace at meals, including the penitential image of Mary Magdalen washing the feet of Christ with her tears at the lower right.
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