Six times a year, Eleonora Pucci dusts off on Monday mornings. Climb the scaffolding of the Accademia Gallery in Florence, Italy to see Michelangelo’s David. new york times report. She then takes a picture of her, checks the 17-foot statue for wear, and monitors the amount of microscopic dust she’s picked up since she was last there. Once that work is done, Pucci, the museum’s in-house restorer, dusts it off. She considers her job “the best job in the world.” It allows her to “contribute in any small way to maintain David’s beauty.”
Pucci is in no hurry to dust, making light movements with a synthetic-bristle brush. Starting at the head, Pucci stirs up the particles and captures them instantly with a small vacuum cleaner designed for statues fixed on his back. Cleaning the statue, completed in 1504, is not only an appreciation for Michelangelo’s work, but it can elicit her “great emotion.” That’s also the case when Pucci dusts off his “prisoners”, her four unfinished figures intended for the mausoleum of Pope Julius II. “You can see his technique and flea marks in the prisoners,” she said. “You enter into his mental process. It makes you feel how he approached the marble and released the figure he believed was trapped within the stone.”
Nearby, in Piazza della Signoria, Florence’s main square, David’s copy underwent a more aggressive cleaning this fall. A copy installed in 1910 was intended as a replacement when concerns about the original’s preservation arose. TimesThis work is more than dusting. Non-toxic chemicals are used on young David to kill moss, algae and lichens that may form on the outdoor statue’s marble. After cleaning, add a protective coating. But vandalism is the biggest threat to Florentine open-air art, said the architect responsible for its maintenance. Giorgio Caselli said, “There is too high a level of rudeness. (Read more of Michelangelo’s stories.)