Earlier this month on a visit to the Cenacola di Ognissanti on Borgo Ognissanti,  Meriel and Alison asked me about the meaning of the walnuts on the table of the Last Supper by Ghirlandaio and as nothing was put into a Renaissance painting without a reason – I was intrigued too and promised to look it up for them.

It seems that the walnut was favoured by people of the time because it was used as a symbol of the Trinity – Father,Son and Holy Ghost because of it’s three component parts – the kernel being protected by a husk or shell , which whilst growing has been protected by an inedible green  hull.

Walnuts were also given to newly weds on their wedding day – probably in allusion to the solidity of the union of matrimony suggested by such a well protected nut – but also as a symbol of fertility.

In many paintings of the marriage of the Virgin, such as the one below, Joseph’s rod , which suitors took to the father of the bride as a request for betrothal, has blossomed to show that he is the chosen one. This was often painted as a branch of a walnut tree as an emblem of a solid and fertile marriage.

More relevant to a painting of the Last Supper is the association with the Trinity, or Saint Augustine’s assertion that this nut could be considered a symbol of Jesus Christ.  In his thesis he explains that the outer green fleshy shell represents the corporeal body of Christ , the woody shell inside stands for the cross and the kernel shows the divinity of Christ

So I imagine that this was the reason that Ghirlandaio put walnuts on the table of his Last Supper – but I will add to this Blog if I find out anything else- or find any other painting which include them!

Unrelated to this painting, whilst researching  walnuts I found some wonderful medicinal values of walnuts from 2,000 years ago in a Blog by Andrew F. Smith of the New School of Manhatten, which I thought might be worth sharing.

The walnut was the most important nut from a health standpoint in the ancient Mediterranean world. Its medicinal virtues were detailed in many Greek and Roman medical writings.
Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the Roman army living in the first century C.E., traveled extensively and came to know many of the plants of the Mediterranean. His only surviving
work, Materia Medica, was completed about the middle of the first century.

Dioscorides esteemed walnuts for medicinal purposes. He believed that when they were eaten with rue and figs, the nuts counteracted poisons.

Walnuts along with honey and rue helped with “inflammation of the breasts, abscesses and dislocations.”

With onions, salt, and honey, walnuts would heal those bitten by dogs or men.

When burnt, they assuaged colic.

Dioscorides wrote that if walnut kernels were burned, ground with wine and oil, and applied to an infant’s head, the child’s hair would grow abundantly and bald spots would disappear.

Walnuts, “if chewed and laid on as a plaster, cures gangrene, carbuncles, sty in the eye, and hair loss.”

They were also mixed with garlic and applied as a poultice to remove bruises on the body.

Many of these recommendations would appear in subsequent medical works for almost two thousand years .

Who knows? With a little credibility -and nothing else to hand – they might even work today?!