Last Supper tickets sold out? What still works

Start with the official booking channels

Leonardo's Last Supper is painted on the wall of the old refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, now the Museo del Cenacolo Vinciano, a state museum run since December 2024 by the Pinacoteca di Brera. It is not one of the activities on Italy's list yet; this guide is for anyone planning Milan around it.

The museum sells tickets through three channels and says plainly that "there are no other channels": its online shop at cenacolovinciano.vivaticket.it, reached through the ticket contractor's site lastsupper.shop; a call centre on +39 02 92800360; and an email address for groups of ten or more. The name lastsupper.shop looks unofficial, but the museum's own site links to it for tickets and tours.

This is a planning guide, not a report of a recent visit. The rules and prices below come from cenacolovinciano.org and lastsupper.shop, checked on 25 October 2026. The ticket shop blocks automated visits, so two details from it (the range of dates on sale, which matches the museum's own notice, and its pointer to guided tours) come from an archived copy of its page dated 15 October 2026.

Why it sells out

For conservation reasons a visit lasts 15 minutes, for at most 40 people at a time. Booking is required at all times and for everyone, infants and free tickets included, so there is no turning up on the day.

Tickets go on sale in batches. The museum says sales open "approximately three months in advance", but the dates move: 30 September 2025 for November to January, 17 December 2025 for February to April, 24 March 2026 for May to August and 23 June 2026 for September to December, each at 12:00. On 25 October 2026 nothing after 31 December 2026 was on sale and the next batch had not been announced. The quarterly calendar printed on the museum's info page did not match the 2026 dates, so watch its news page instead.

Tickets carry the visitor's name, "to prevent scalping", in the museum's words. Individual tickets cannot be renamed or given to someone else, you show ID to collect them, and once paid there are no refunds and no changes of date or time.

Official options first

1. Be online on Wednesday at 12:00. Every Wednesday at noon, Italian time, extra tickets for the following week go on sale, online only, for individual visitors, up to five per purchase. This is the museum's own last-minute route.
2. Keep checking. The museum's advice is to "check the website several times, as availability updates daily". There is no waiting list.
3. Look at the official guided tours. The contractor's tours have their own slots, and the shop itself points to them when plain tickets are gone. English tours run Tuesday to Sunday at 9:30, 11:30, 12:30, 15:00, 17:00 and 17:30, for €10 per person on top of the ticket; they last 45 minutes, 15 of them inside. A tour with a workshop costs €16 extra, and combined tours add the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (90 minutes, €18) or the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana (150 minutes, €34).
4. Phone the call centre. It sells up to nine tickets at a time, Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 20:00 and Saturday from 8:00 to 14:00, by card only. Small groups can also ask for a private tour, from €150 per group plus tickets, with guides in several languages including Spanish.
5. Try a free Sunday. On the first Sunday of the month, free tickets go on sale online only, from 12:00 on the Wednesday before, up to five per person. By that rule, tickets for Sunday 1 November 2026 go on sale on Wednesday 28 October. The museum warns it "cannot assure" availability on free days.

Tours and resold tickets with entry included

The museum names no authorised resellers, and it repeats that its three channels are the only ones. It does not say it refuses tickets booked through a tour operator, but the name on each ticket has to be the visitor's, and you show ID at the ticket office to collect it. Guided tours with entry sold on platforms are third-party products the museum does not endorse. External guides are not allowed to lead tours inside the refectory, so inside you get the same 15 minutes as everyone else.

must30's advice: try the Wednesday release and the official tours first. If your dates are fixed and those fail, a third-party tour is the remaining option. Make sure the operator takes each visitor's name exactly as it appears on their ID, and expect to pay far more than the €15 ticket.

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Timing that helps

The museum opens Tuesday to Sunday from 8:15 to 19:00, with last admission at 18:45, and closes on Mondays, 1 January and 25 December. It also closes for a few hours several times a year for staff meetings, announced a few days ahead. Be at the ticket office 30 minutes before your time to validate the ticket with your ID, then at the museum door 15 minutes before. Late arrivals lose their entry.

Twice a year the Ministry of Culture opens state museums in the evening for €1: on European Museum Night in mid-May and on the European Heritage Days at the end of September. Those tickets go on sale online a few days before.

What not to do

• Do not book under the wrong name. Individual tickets cannot be renamed after purchase.
• Do not arrive at your time. The ticket office wants you 30 minutes early, and late arrivals lose their visit.
• Do not hire a guide to take you round inside. External guides are not allowed to lead tours in the refectory.
• Do not buy from a site that is not one of the three official channels and does not ask for each visitor's name.

Keep planning

• Italy's list, for the rest of an Italian trip.
• Italy is not one list, on how the north differs from the rest.
• One week in Italy: pick a lane, not a loop, for deciding whether Milan fits your week.
• The other ticket guides, including the Uffizi and the Colosseum.