Museo dell'Opera del Duomo Reopens With More Space Two Years After Tourist Breaks Statue
- October 30, 2015 11:51
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence, Italy, re-opened on Oct. 29, 2015, following a gallery expansion. It is the world's largest repository of Florentine medieval and Renaissance sculpture with 750 statues and about 250 artworks including masterpieces by Michelangelo, Donatello, Arnolfo di Cambio, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Andrea Pisano, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Luca della Robbia, and Andrea del Verrocchio.
Expanded exhibition space will include some works that have never before been displayed. Hopefully, the increased elbow room will deter incidents like the 2013 breakage of a 14th-century statue of the Virgin Mary by Giovanni d'Ambrogio. An American tourist accidentally broke off its finger (which was actually a later repair).
The museum houses many original works of art created for the cathedral (Duomo) of Florence. One collection highlight is Michelangelo's The Deposition, a pieta that the sculptor intended for his own tomb.
