They use flesh-eating bacteria to clean Michelangelo’s sculptures

Michelangelo statues in the Medici Chapel in Florence are cleaned in an extraordinary way. Since the wrong embalming technique was used in the chapel, which housed the corpses of the Medici family, the liquids leaking from the corpses made it possible to clean the statues with bacteria.

The Medici Chapel is like the mausoleum of the Medici family, one of the most powerful families of the Renaissance. About 500 years ago, Duke Alessandro de Medici, ruler of Florence, died when attacked by an assassin hired by his cousin. His body was placed in his father’s tomb.

With the touches of Michelangelo, the chapel has become one of the structures that left a mark on art history. Recently, however, Italian art historians have noticed that the marble statues in the Medici Chapel, where the Duke’s body was found, are starting to look blotchy.

LIQUIDS LEAKING FROM THE BODY CAUSES CONTAMINATION

In November 2019, the National Research Council of Italy found out what is causing the stains on the statues: fluids oozing from the not-so-appropriately mummified corpse of Alessandro de Medici.

The fluids leaking from the corpse, along with the glue and other compounds that build up in the plaster over time, begin to seep into the Twilight and Dawn statues that adorn Alessandro’s father’s tomb.

MORE THOUSAND BACTERIA INVESTIGATION

Because the stains on the sculptures cannot be removed with chemical cleaning products, Anna Rosa Sprocati, a biologist at the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, and her team selected more than 1,000 bacteria to test against the stains. Some bacteria were observed to eat not only human remains but also the delicate Carrera marble, but in the end, the eight most promising bacteria were selected and tested in a grilled section behind the church.

The bacteria were then placed in Giuliano di Lorenzo’s tomb; specifically, the Night and Day statues, and the Night statue was observed to clean its hair and eyes of any accumulated debris successfully.

After a short hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team released the best flesh-eating bacteria via a microbial gel onto the staining grave.

Source: https://www.sozcu.com.tr/hayatim/yasam-haberleri/michelangelonun-heykellerini-temizlemek-icin-et-yiyen-bakteriler-kullaniyorlar/?utm_source=ilgili_haber&utm_medium=free&utm_campaign=ilgilihaber