Truth is there were people sitting on all sides of the table but DaVinci didn’t think people would like a painting mostly of the back of their chairs and heads and invented a device to hide them so he could paint the rest as if they weren’t there. And because of that, people thought there were only 12 disciples, but there were actually 13, plus about 7 fringe group members that weren’t that into Jesus but liked his fan club so would come to hang with them.
Truth is there were people sitting on all sides of the table but DaVinci didn’t think people would like a painting mostly of the back of their chairs and heads and invented a device to hide them so he could paint the rest as if they weren’t there. And because of that, people thought there were only 12 disciples, but there were actually 13, plus about 7 fringe group members that weren’t that into Jesus but liked his fan club so would come to hang with them.