So then, The Last Supper is all nice and clean now, but did Leonardo Da Vinci really paint it? As Italy's Minister for the Arts, Ms Giovanna Melandri, was officially unveiling the 21-year-long, £2.8 million pound restoration of one of the great Renaissance masterpieces, doubters far across the sea were expressing heretical thoughts.
Even as the Minister told her VIP audience of how Leonardo would have been pleased with them, Prof Carlo Pedretti of the Leonardo Study Centre at the University of California was suggesting that the great maestro had not painted the work but that he had merely designed and overseen it, leaving the painting to a pair of hitherto little-known men, Marco da Oggiono and Boltraffio.
Not that such polemics seemed to worry the shakers and makers of Milanese society who gathered to celebrate the restoration's completion. Nobel Literature Prize winner, Dario Fo, fashion designers, Giorgio Armani, Santo Versace and Krizia, and representatives of communications giant, Olivetti, who sponsored the 50,000 hour long clean-up, came together in a cacophony of approving noises and mobile phones to offer approval.
As for the restorer herself, Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, it was a day of mixed emotions as she looked at the results of 21 years' work. "It is no longer mine, it belongs to everybody. . ."
As for "everybody", access to the painting will be limited to 25 visitors at a time in the now purified air, environment controlled refectory. Despite these restrictions, however, reservations are already pouring in by the thousands. (Telephone: 003902-89421146 from Ireland).