New restoration work is helping art historians understand Michelangelo’s Bandini Pietà, one of the Renaissance master’s great unfinished sculptures. A preliminary cleaning has already revealed previously unknown details, such as different tool marks made by the artist and remnants of the plaster used to make a cast of the work in the 19th century.
The restoration, which began last November but was interrupted by the global shutdown, is the “first important and in-depth restoration in the entire history of this work in more four centuries of life,” Timothy Verdon, director of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, where the sculpture has been held since 1981, said in a video released by the museum.
