FLORENCE, ITALY – Michelangelo’s world-famous statue of David got a clean-up in Florence, Italy.
The restartion was financed by a US non-profit group, Friends of Florence, which has spent some € 500,000 in recent years preserving the Renaissance masterpieces.
At the Galleria dell’Accademia a team of experts spent 24 hours dusting off the 5.17-metre long (17.0 ft) statue. The process takes place every two months.
The statue represents the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence. Originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the east end of Florence Cathedral, the statue was placed instead in a public square, outside the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of civic government in Florence, where it was unveiled on 8 September 1504.
The statue was moved to the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, in 1873, and later replaced at the original location by a replica.
