Near future
Contact us
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • energia
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+
June 26 2022

Coronavirus / Russia-Ukraine

Near future

Cleaning up Michelangelo's Renaissance sculptures? Bacteria take care of it

Covid (and the irony of fate) did not stop the advance of bacteria in the restoration of some of Michelangelo's great works.

Gianluca Riccio di  Gianluca Riccio
June 14 2021
in Environment, Technology
Lorenzo de medici michelangelo
Send to FacebookPin on PinterestSend on TwitterSend on Whatsappon Linkedin

The stains on Michelangelo's marbles are a very long, ironic revenge of history after the crime of 1537.

That year, on January 6, the Duke of Florence Alessandro De 'Medici was attracted by the promise of meeting a beautiful widow and attacked by his cousin (Lorenzo De' Medici) and a hitman, who stabbed him to death. After his assassination, the former ruler of Florence was apparently left to rot in his father's tomb.

A degradation that, as in the painting by Dorian Gray, is now reflected in the statue of Michelangelo that portrays Lorenzo.

Maybe you are also interested

A three-layered bacterial biobattery produces electricity for weeks

Oil in the oceans, to absorb a sea of ​​human hair

NASA scientists want to make trees sing and broadcast them into the cosmos

Oil spill the size of New York is ruining the Mediterranean

Even this mocking twist of fate, however, cannot compete with our most formidable restorers: bacteria.

Michelangelo
Portrait in armor of Alessandro De 'Medici

The dirty chapel

The Medici family ruled Florence and the church, a bank-backed hegemony that spanned centuries that practically sponsored the Renaissance. Such a powerful family also guaranteed a powerful place for eternal rest. The Medici Chapel was commissioned to Michelangelo, whose sculptures adorn the sarcophagi. 

The cleaning of persistent dirt and stains in the Medici Chapel began before COVID. In November 2019, the Italian National Research Council found out what was behind the dirt. Anna Rosa Sprocati, a biologist at the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, has chosen the 1.000 most promising to be tested against stains from her catalog of over 8 bacteria.

The work of bacteria on Michelangelo

The selected bacteria began to "operate" on the tomb of Giuliano De 'Medici, Duke of Nemours. Embellishing the Duke's tomb are the personifications of Night and Day. Bacteria began successfully by "washing" the hair and ears of the Night.

Michelangelo
The New Sacristy ("New Sacristy") was designed by Michelangelo. The New Sacristy was commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de 'Medici and his cousin Pope Leo X as a mausoleum or mortuary chapel for the members of the Medici family. It was Michelangelo's first architectural essay (1519–24), who also designed his monuments dedicated to some members of the Medici family, with sculptural figures from the four hours of the day intended to influence sculptural figures resting on lintels for many generations to come. The New Sacristy was accessed from a discreet entrance in a corner of the right transept of San Lorenzo, now closed.

Then came COVID-19. 

Construction stopped until mid-October 2020, when the team returned and released a bacterium called Serratia ficaria SH7 on Alexander's stained tomb.

"SH7 ate all night," they say Monica Bietti, former director of the Museum of Medici Chapels, and the restorer Marina Vincenti.

Italy loves bacteria (the good ones, I mean)

Italy is particularly fond of bacteria. Not only Michelangelo: the logs that gulp down sulfur have cleaned up the "black crusts" from Milan Cathedral, working much better than a chemical treatment.A fresco on the dome of a Pisa cathedral and a cemetery near the Leaning Tower have been cleared of pollutant-eating bacteria.

They are also excellent "environmental guardians"

Michelangelo
The terrifying explosion of the Deepwater Horizon

The strains with which Sprocati began cleaning Michelangelo's works are excellent in environmental cleaning, eating oil in spills and detoxifying heavy metals. They did a great job, for example, to reduce the oil spill of BP's Deepwater Horizon, the largest in history. 

Da that awful proving ground, a bacterium called Alcanivorax borkumensis emerged as the best candidate for fighting oil spills breaking down 80% of crude oil compounds.

Anyway, the bacterial army of the Medici Chapel did its job. 

Tourists will admire the pensive gaze of the bearded twilight sculpted by Michelangelo, the rise of his dazed Alba and the tomb of Lorenzo, now finally freed from the "dark remains" of Alexander.

tags: modern artbacteriamichelangeloPetroleum

Maybe you are also interested in:

Elena Garcia Armada
Robotica

A children's exoskeleton 'grows' with them and can change their lives

Wood fiber bottles
Environment

Carlsberg tests wood fiber beer bottles. Better than glass? Mmm

marilyn monroe
Society

Marilyn Monroe cover girl again, yet another 'digital resurrection'

COLLABORATE

To submit articles, disclose the results of a research or scientific discoveries write to the editorial staff
  • solar paint

    Solar paint: where are we?

    378 Shares
    Share 151 Tweet 94
  • BrintØ, an artificial island to produce green hydrogen

    148 Shares
    Share 59 Tweet 37
  • Move objects with thought? Telekinesis is a matter of technology

    141 Shares
    Share 56 Tweet 35
  • Meta shows the impact of the Metaverse in its new campaign

    371 Shares
    Share 148 Tweet 93
  • New 3D batteries: electric vehicles over 98% charged in less than 10 minutes

    1335 Shares
    Share 534 Tweet 334

archive

Have a look here:

Arctic
Environment

There are now 6 new islands in the Arctic, and they have already been colonized

Glaciers in the Arctic recede and reveal new islands: in recent years the phenomenon has affected dozens of "emerged" lands ....

Read More

Branson inaugurates the first spaceport in human history.

The road of the future for autonomous vehicles between Detroit and Ann Arbor

BBeep, the smart trolley that accompanies blind people to the airport

low cost respirator

A low cost respirator can make a difference against coronavirus

The daily tomorrow

Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Environment
Architecture
Artificial intelligence
Gadgets
concepts
Design

Staff
Archives
Advertising
Privacy Policy

Medicine
Spazio
Robotica
Work
Transportation
energia

To contact the FuturoProssimo editorial team, write to [email protected]

Chinese Version
Édition Française
Deutsche Ausgabe
Japanese version
English Edition
Edição Portuguesa
Русское издание
Spanish edition

The daily tomorrow

Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

Chinese Version
Édition Française
Deutsche Ausgabe
Japanese version
English Edition
Edição Portuguesa
Русское издание
Spanish edition

Staff
Archives
Advertising
Privacy Policy

Subscribe to our newsletter

To contact the FuturoProssimo editorial team, write to [email protected]

Categories

This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
© 2021 Futuroprossimo

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • energia
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+