FLORENCE, ITALY – Found micro-fractures in Michelangelo’s statue of David, researchers in Florence warned on Wednesday April 30, 2014.
The National Research Council (CNR) and the University of Florence sounded the alarm after performing tests on 10cm plaster replicas of the statue inside a centrifuge, exposing them to pressures stronger than the force of gravity.
Focus was centered on a series of micro-fractures on the legs, whose ankles are allegedly too thin to support its 5,572 kilograms safely.
“Micro-fractures are visible in the left ankle and the carved tree stump (that bears part of the statue’s weight), threatening the stability of the sculpture,” said a CNR statement, which was published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage.
Experts have long warned that the statue’s weight, pose and poor-quality marble put it at risk in the event of an earthquake or even successive rumblings from maintenance at its home in the Accademia Gallery or road construction outside. Florence has a recorded history of 127 minor quakes, none of which topped five on the Richter scale.
The National Research Council (CNR) is a public organization; its duty is to carry out, promote, spread, transfer and improve research activities in the main sectors of knowledge growth and of its applications for the scientific, technological, economic and social development of the Country.
CNR is distributed all over Italy through a network of institutes aiming at promoting a wide diffusion of its competences throughout the national territory and at facilitating contacts and cooperation with local firms and organizations.
From the financial point of view, the main resources come from the State, but also from the market: even 30% of its balance sheet, an extraordinary result, is the result of revenues coming from external job orders for studies and activities of technical advice as well as from agreements with firms, contracts with the European Union and with the other international organizations.