Michelangelo's Pietà Bandini Restored in Florence

The Pietà Bandini, a marble sculpture by Michelangelo created between 1547 and 1555, has undergone a major restoration completed in September 2021. The restoration, commissioned by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and funded by Friends of Florence, was led by Paola Rosa with Emanuela Peiretti. The sculpture, housed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence, will be exceptionally accessible to the public until March 30, 2022, with guided tours of the open restoration site. The work is one of three Pietàs by Michelangelo, alongside the Vatican Pietà and the Rondanini Pietà in Milan. It uniquely features Christ supported by Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Nicodemus, whose face is Michelangelo's self-portrait. Originally intended for a Roman church altar where Michelangelo wished to be buried, the unfinished sculpture was given to his servant Antonio da Casteldurante, sold to banker Francesco Bandini, and later passed through Cardinal Luigi Capponi, the Granduca Cosimo III de' Medici, and eventually placed in Florence's Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in 1722. It moved to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in 1981. The restoration revealed that the marble came from the Seravezza quarries and contained defects like pyrite inclusions and micro-fractures, likely why Michelangelo abandoned the work. Cleaning involved deionized water and scalpels for wax residues from candles. The only prior intervention was by Tiberio Calcagni nearly 500 years ago.