Michelangelo’s Florence Is Abuzz Over 11-Ton American Statue

Heard on the Internet?? The Current Mayor Wants to Put It On Ebay!! " An American In Florence?" Guess Not. My comment. Story below.

By A. Craig Copetas

Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- “This is much more dangerous than painting watercolors,” New York artist Greg Wyatt frets as the predawn convoy of safety vehicles and trucks carrying his 11-ton “Two Rivers” bronze statue rumbles across the Arno River.

The sculpture is about to be installed on Piazza della Signoria, the fabled Florentine square where the Medici banking family first laid the foundation for corporate arts patronage.

“Twenty-two thousand pounds of bronze can do a lot of damage if it collapses on people,” the 59-year-old Wyatt warns. He’s watching the rising sun sparkle off Giambologna’s colossal 16th- century bronze of Cosimo de Medici surveying “Rape of the Sabine Women” and the other treasures that annually lure some 9.5 million foreign visitors to the center of Renaissance art.

Bronze is big in these parts -- very big -- and Wyatt, artist-in-residence at St. John the Divine Cathedral in Manhattan, has reason to worry. He’s about to do something that Florence Vice-Mayor Dario Nardella says hasn’t been done since the days of Michelangelo and Benvenuto Cellini.

“Wyatt is the first artist to have a monumental work displayed on Piazza della Signoria in perhaps five centuries,” the 33-year-old Nardella says. “This is an historic experiment and it will create a huge debate, an argument that we want to foster. In 1505, the city erupted in protest when we installed Michelangelo’s ‘David.’ It will be the same with ‘Two Rivers’ and this is good; it shows that Florence is more than a shopping mall for tourists.” Full story here.