After more than eight years of work, conservators presented the newly restored tombs in Florence this week:
The tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, 1524–34, by Michelangelo Buonarroti, at the New Sacristy, Medici Chapels, Basilica of Saint Lawrence, in Florence, Italy, 2017. Courtesy of Getty Images.
The bacteria were especially adept at tackling one substance tarnishing Michelangelo’s handiwork: organic fluids that had seeped from the long-rotted corpse of Alessandro Medici, a one-time ruler of Florence, whose body had been deposited in a sarcophagus without being properly eviscerated. The tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours, 1524-1534 at the New Sacristy, Medici Chapels, Basilica of Saint Lawrence in Florence, Italy, 2017. Courtesy of Getty Images.
“The restoration of one of the most symbolic places of art required knowledge, experience, and science, combined with the qualities of sensitivity and intelligence,” she said.