Discovering Michelangelo in Florence

With Andreina Contessa, director of the new museum complex

Starting this spring in Florence, the world’s most significant collection of sculptures by Michelangelo Buonarroti can be viewed along a single, extraordinary itinerary that winds through the city’s most iconic art sites. Our exceptional guide on this journey is Andreina Contessa, director of the new museum institute born from the union of seven venues—the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, the Bargello Museums, the Medici Chapels, Orsanmichele, Palazzo Davanzati, Casa Martelli, and San Procolo—under a single administration. The marvelous power of David, the elegant roundness of the youthful Drunken Bacchus that becomes angular pride in Brutus, a most tender Madonna and Child, the poignant message of the unfinished Prisoners and David-Apollo… are the works of a thematic exhibition dedicated to Michelangelo, conceived to inaugurate this new museum season, finally accessible in a single package, where you will be guided by the beauty and balance that have inspired humanity for centuries. A single ticket to walk through the corridor of the Prigioni leading to the Tribuna del David, the Bargello, and, last but not least, the Medici Chapels.

The new complex brings together institutions that are very different in history and identity. What is the main challenge in transforming this diversity into a unified project?

The challenge lies in reorganizing and making this new large museum function, highlighting the diversity of the venues within a shared narrative and offering the public an integrated understanding of Florence’s artistic and cultural heritage. Coordinated management and a shared cultural vision are ushering in a new phase of reorganization for the system, affecting various aspects of museum operations: in addition to combined tickets and shared schedules, this includes restoration and redesign efforts, all while respecting the identity and unique character of each museum. Another important factor is time: visitors will have several days to savor and enjoy their visit across the various sites within Florence’s urban fabric.

In recent years, sculpture has been experiencing renewed international interest. Can Florence once again become a global hub for statuary?

During the Renaissance, Florence was one of the world’s centers of sculpture, home to artists such as Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo, and Giambologna. A renewed focus on sculpture today could serve as a cultural and critical strategy and an opportunity for direct engagement, but it cannot avoid engaging with the immense weight of tradition. Some contemporary artists have already explored this, through references to Michelangelo’s unfinished works, the use of fragments, and the reinterpretation of monuments. Certainly, at the urban level, this type of sculpture undoubtedly creates a visual and conceptual tension between tradition and the contemporary. For this reason, it must be approached with a certain intelligence. Contemporary sculptures can have the distinctive trait of occupying public spaces. And so it can be useful in Florence to revitalize historic squares and courtyards and to create new urban and tourist routes, as has already been done in Piazza della Signoria and in the space in front of San Lorenzo.

The Bargello, in particular, seems to be the ‘heart’ of this sculptural identity. Is that so?

One need only step into the Salone di Donatello, the beating heart of the Bargello, to realize that we are in the temple of 15th-century Italian sculpture. Donatello’s bronze David, innovative for its almost feminine and defiant sensuality, is the first major Renaissance sculpture in the round cast in bronze, and it attests to a rethinking of ancient art through a new expressive freedom. Verrocchio’s David, a prelude to the explorations of the High Renaissance, embodies the shift toward a more dynamic sculpture drawn to the observation of reality. The works of Donatello and Verrocchio demonstrate how Renaissance sculpture progressively integrated the study of antiquity, observation of reality, perspective, and individual interpretation, irrevocably transforming the plastic language of the era. And we’re talking about just one room in the Bargello, the leading repository of medieval and Renaissance art, famous for the immense wealth of its collections: over 40,000 works of art.

The first of the itineraries you’ve designed to offer a cohesive experience of the new institution is dedicated to Michelangelo. How does this itinerary unfold?

The Bargello houses several works by Michelangelo: the early Drunken Bacchus, as well as the Pitti Tondo, which depicts the Madonna and Child with the artist’s first experiments in the “unfinished” style to create an atmospheric effect, the Brutus, and the David-Apollo. Among the Bargello’s associated sites, the Museum of the Medici Chapels must also be mentioned, where one can admire one of Michelangelo’s greatest masterpieces, the New Sacristy, a chapel designed and executed by him in both architecture and sculpture under the patronage of the Medici family. Here we find Michelangelo’s monumental sculpture set within a sober and elegant Renaissance architecture: the two funerary monuments of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino. And one cannot help but pause before the proud and delicate beauty of the Madonna Medici. Add to these works the David at the Accademia, where we can admire the Prisoners originally intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II in Rome, and the Slavs, the unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo Buonarroti, followed by Saint Matthew and the Pietà of Palestrina, and this itinerary allows us to explore all the major phases of the great master’s sculptural work and his ongoing reflection on meaning, the nature of art, and the silence of stone.

Can you reveal the next steps in this extraordinary unification?

Our initial goals have already been achieved: the combined ticketing system, the thematic itineraries, and the focus on the visitor experience, which promote a slower, more distributed, and inclusive engagement with the heritage, in constant dialogue with the city. From my perspective, the museum should be understood as a living organism: conservation efforts, energy-efficient retrofitting, updates to the visitor routes, and experimentation with new forms of expression will accompany the institution’s transformation over time. Among the most urgent, in my view, is the renewal of the style and narrative of the Bargello entrance and the hall dedicated to Michelangelo and 16th-century sculpture.

Is there perhaps an educational intent behind beauty?

I strongly believe in the intrinsic value of experiencing beauty, which speaks to each person on different levels and conveys an aesthetic awareness of infinite value. I believe equally clearly that the experience of a series of beautiful places like our museums, which exude history and art, constitutes a precious and unique educational moment. Museums serve as a bridge between other times and our present. To experience their beauty means making room in our existence for the presence of another time within our own time, of another world within our own world.