Since 2013, Friends of Florence Foundation (FoF) has retained Bow Bridge to help build its international profile by heightening awareness of its conservation projects and activities in Florence and environs. FoF is the primary source of funding for the city’s conservators, a respected partner with museums and cultural authorities in Italy and abroad, and organizers of publications, digital experiences, seminars, lectures, and cultural travel opportunities. Recent restoration projects Michelangelo’s Madonna of the Stairs and Battle of the Centaurs in Casa Buonarroti; Donatello’s Judith and Bronzino’s portrait of Laura Battiferri in the Palazzo Vecchio; and Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine begun by Masaccio and Masolino and completed by Filippino Lippi in 1485.
Among FoF’s projects are the ongoing conservation of Michelangelo’s David and Prisoners in the Accademia; his poignant Pietà in the Opera del Duomo; Botticelli’s odes to classic beauty in the Uffizi Gallery; Ghiberti’s epic Gates of Paradise; the sublime Deposition from the Cross by Pontormo in the Capponi Chapel and Deposition by Rosso Fiorentino in Volterra; and Fra Angelico’s vibrant altarpieces. Equally important are those by lesser known artists and architects and objects dating to Greek, Etruscan, and Roman times as well as those designed for scientific inquiry such as historic globes and maps in the Galileo Museum.
Top Photograph: Restorer working on Michelangelo’s David at the Galleria dell’ Accademia, Florence. Photo courtesy of Friends of Florence. Inset Photograph: Restorer working on Deposition, by Rosso Fiorentino, c. 1591, oil on wood 375 x 196 cm. Pinoteca Civica Museum, Volterra, Italy. Courtesy of Friends of Florence. Photo: Daniel Rossi.