WHEN THE DOMINICAN FRIARS AT Florence’s Santa Maria Novella didn’t feel well and needed medicinal herbs, they stepped out to Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy (considered the oldest still-operating pharmacy in the world) along the monastery wall. But when it was time for these same monks to ingest a meal, they went to Santa Maria Novella’s refectory—a rectangular cafeteria shaped like a communal dining table, just off the grand cloister.

Refectories were all about food, right down to the artwork on the walls. In Florence, they were usually decorated with a fresco of Christ’s Last Supper, an image of sustenance painted directly into a wall’s plaster, to be contemplated during mealtimes.