Giorno E Notte Firenze
November 9, 2010
Raffaella Marcucci – La Nazione
The Casa Buonarroti this year will be open to double its visitors from ten thousand to twenty thousand, this is also thanks to the synergy established last April with the Basilica of Santa Croce and to the intense programming of exhibitions, said Eugenio Giani the acting chairman of the Foundation. The Casa Buonarroti is waiting for the opening of the important exhibition in February with the drawings by Michelangelo and Leonardo, in collaboration with the Ambrosiana Library, Meanwhile, the exhibition, Michelangelo in Bronze, opens today and goes from today untill January 10, 2011, where there will be eleven life sized replicas. The casts were made from the originals, and will be a glance back at the long artistic career of Michelangelo, with works from his youth preserved at the Casa Buonarroti, including: The Madonna of the Stairs, The Battle of the Centaurs, and a copy of his last work the Rondinini Pieta from the Castello Sforzesco, a work which Michelangelo was working on right before his death.
The artful copies, faithful in every detail are done by hand, which is the result of “working in the old ways”, said Pina Ragionieri, the director of the Casa Buonarroti Foundation- which is a high artistic craft.
Like the powerful statue of Moses for the tomb of Pope Julius II in Rome, whose copy in bronze, more than two meters high and weighing a ton and a half, was lowered in the courtyard of the Casa Buonarroti at night from a crane on Via Ghibellina. The Florentine show marks the opening of the “Michelangelo Experience Tour,” which is the idea of New Renaissance Art in collaboration with the Casa Buonarroti Foundation and the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry and has brought profit to the organization, because of the generous contribution from events at the museum. The replicas in bronze for this exhibition, were commissioned by the American company and made by the Tuscan Foundry, where the statues will find a showcase that is an authoritative environment for their work, (which emphasizes the beautiful preparation of the show) After this the show will go to the United States, Mexico, and Asia to share the images of the genius and to find buyers in museums, institutions, and religious groups.