Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze and  Musei del Bargello are launching a new restoration project: in the Michelangelo Hall of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, dismantling of the base of Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus has begun, the first step in the new conservation project. The restoration work will be visible in a live site, accessible to the public starting from May, 12th to September, 5th 2026.

Commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici to accompany the famous bronze statue for the Loggia dei Lanzi the marble base, housed in the Bargello National Museum in the same room as masterpieces by leading 16th-century Florentine masters such as Michelangelo Buonarroti, Giambologna, Bartolomeo Ammannati and Baccio Bandinelli, is a refined masterpiece of sculptural carving conceived as a richly decorated altar filled with symbolic meaning.

The restoration, which begins almost thirty years after the previous intervention, will be accompanied by a live construction site open to the public, set up in the Museum’s ground-floor exhibition hall and accessible starting in May, 12th to September, 5th 2026. The initiative will offer visitors the opportunity to closely follow the various phases of the restoration, gaining a deeper understanding of the techniques, materials, and methodologies involved.