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A High-Tech Twin for a Renaissance Masterpiece
Oct 1, 2020
FLORENCE, Italy — For the past five centuries, Michelangelo’s David has been celebrated for its sculptural perfection and its embodiment of youthful beauty and strength. Now, Italian officials want the sculpture to help showcase Italian craftsmanship and high-tech expertise in the digital age. Over the next several months, a battery of Italian engineers, technicians, craftspeople and restorers will use what the project’s coordinator has described as “the most advanced technologies available today” to 3-D print an exact copy of the 17-foot statue. The replica will then be the centerpiece of the Italy Pavilion at the next world fair, Expo 2020 Dubai , which was originally scheduled to open this month but was postponed until next October because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s technology tied to historical memory, for future memory,” said Paolo Glisenti, the commissioner general for Italy at the expo. “History and innovation — those are the themes that interest us.”
Italian companies will work on all aspects the project, Mr. Glisenti said: “The promotion of Italian scientific and technological expertise is part of the operation.” He was speaking at the Galleria dell’Accademia, the Florence museum that David has called home since 1873, at one of a series of events being held in Italy this week to mark a year to go until the expo. David is arguably the most famous Renaissance statue in the world. The first colossal statue made since antiquity, it made waves practically as soon as it was unveiled in 1504. In his chronicle of Michelangelo’s life written about 50 years later, Giorgio Vasari described it as a work of “just proportion, beauty and excellence” that surpassed “all other statues, modern or ancient.” Even in a year when tourism to Florence has been hobbled by the coronavirus, the statue remains a powerful draw.
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