Taking David to the Cleaners

September 5, 2003

FLORENCE, Italy – The world’s most-famous piece of sculpted marble will get a fresh new look, beginning this month … but not without some controversy.
Michelangelo’s David will go through a complete head-to-toe cleaning and restoration at its home here in the Galleria dell’Accademia. The major renewal of the figure – the first since 1843 – will take eight to nine months, according to a presentation from project managers at the Carrara Marmotec trade event in early June.
The 16’-tall statue of the biblical king-to-be (depicted before his face-off with Goliath), will get a cleaning and repair of its famous surface. David will also remain on display – albeit behind heavy security glass, due to a vandal managing to break one of the figure’s left toes in 1991.
The restoration involves a “wet” method of cleaning the Carrara-quarried marble with compresses of distilled water and ether, as well as patching some areas of the statue. Going wet, however, led to a major argument about the project.
Originally, the renovation efforts included Agnese Parronchi, who worked on other Michelangelo restorations. However, Parronchi favored a “dry” technique involving badger-hair brushes, cotton swabs, rubber erasers and chamois cloths. When restoration officials, including Museo dell’Accdemia curator Franca Falletti, preferred the wet method, Parronchi quit the project.
Considering the treatment of the famed statue since its unveiling in 1504, some may wonder how it’s still in any kind of viewable condition. For the first 369 years of its existence, it sat outside in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria; it withstood a lightning strike to its base in 1512 and a spate of popular uprisings in 1527, when a rambunctious crowd broke its right arm into pieces.
It’s uncertain if any preservation efforts took place before the 19th century, but a coating patina of hot wax went on the statue between 1808-1815. In 1843, an artisan cleaned the statue’s surface with a solution containing 50-percent chloric acid.
A committee in charge of celebrating the 400th anniversary of Michelangelo’s birth made the decision in 1873 to move the statue inside to its current resting place; the move likely caused structural damage around the ankles.
Much of the information on the statue’s current condition comes from the Digital Michelangelo project headed up in 1999-2000 by Marc Levoy, an associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Levoy’s work scanned the entire surface of the statue and created 3D models of the figure.
The statue’s restoration, estimated at €165,000 ($187,000), will be funded by Ars Longa Stiching, a Dutch arts foundation headed by philanthropist Willem Dreesman. The Friends of Florence, a U.S.-based arts group, will fund other associated costs of restoring exhibits about David and other works.