Michelangelo

Versilia celebrates the artistic genius of Michelangelo Buonarroti with a highly original exhibition in the ancient heart of Seravezza: seven extraordinary life-size bronze replicas of Michelangelo masterpieces – David, Pietà, Mosè, Giorno, Notte, Aurora and Crepuscolo – using the ancient lost wax casting technique. This initiative comes from collaboration between Fondazione Terre Medicee and Fonderia d’Art Massimo Del Chiaro as part of the “La via dei Marmi di Michelangelo” project promoted by Seravezza Town Council and the “Del Chiaro Art Connection” exhibition circuit sponsored by the Tuscany Regional Authorities, Lucca Provincial Authorities and the “Pietro Vannucci” Academy of Fine Arts Foundation in Perugia.

The exhibition makes use of the most significant urban and monumental spaces of Seravezza, the Tuscan town where Michelangelo worked between 1518 and 1520, overseeing the extraction of the esteemed white marble from the nearby quarries of Monte Altissimo. The main Carducci square, not far from the road that Buonarroti used for transporting the marble blocks towards the Versilian coast, will host the replica of the vastly celebrated David; a colossus measuring over five metres with its base, identical to the original conserved at the Gallery of the Academy of Florence. The reproduction of the Vatican Pietà, perhaps the most famous of Michelangelo’s works, will be on show in the fifteenth century Cathedral of Saints Lorenzo and Barbara, while another potent sculptural symbol, the impressive Mosè created for the tomb of Pope Giulio II in Rome, will be placed outside the Medicean Stables. Lastly, in front and within the internal courtyard of the Medicean Palace – the summer residence built in 1561 by Duke Cosimo I – it will be possible to admire the replicas of Giorno, Notte, Aurora and Crepuscolo, the four sculptures from the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo Medici in the New Vestry of the basilica of the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence. These are the real central and most highly esteemed pieces of the exhibition, in being extremely rare replicas casted in chalk in the Renaissance period, owned by the Academy of Fine Arts Foundation in Perugia. The chalk casts, attributed by some to Michelangelo himself, have been exceptionally made available for the creation of six copies for an important cultural exchange project between Italy and China.

All the works on show in Seravezza spring from the studios of the Fonderia d’Art Massimo Del Chiaro in Pietrasanta, one of the most prestigious Italian artisan’s studios at the services of contemporary art. The company collaborates with major international artists and over time has perfected the ancient lost-wax bronze casting techniques, which were already in use in the Etruscan, Greek and Roman periods. Each work is the fruit of a complex process that is developed through a series of delicate phases and involves a wide range of artisan’s skills.