In the spring of 1952 Edgar Wind gave a 20 minutes talk for radio BBC on the subject of Leonardo’s Last Supper („The Listener”, 8 May 1952). Twenty years later Leo Steinberg published a sizable paper on the same topic („Art Quarterly” XXXVI, 1973). Each of the authors based his analysis of the picture according to his personal understanding of the aims of history of art. For Edgar Wind it was the examination of symbols in order to reveal their forgotten or now no longer obvious meanings. Leo Steinberg concentrated above all on clarifying the message conveyed in the language of forms. In spite of the difference of approach both authors in several important points remained surprisingly unanimous. They rejected the Enlightenment conviction, lingering since the times of Goethe, that in the scene of Last Supper the religious theme is merely a pretext to display a basically secular drama of treachery. Both perceived Leonardo’s painting as an elaborate visual epitomy of Christian doctrine of Salvation. Both took pains to reconstruct the theological component of Renaissance mode of perceiving images in general. And finally for both the real objective of their turn to theology was the desire to defend the importance of art at the time of its increasing marginalization.