On the 550th anniversary of the birth of Michelangelo Buonarroti (Caprese, 1475 - Rome, 1564), the Accademia Gallery in Florence presents a new digital tool dedicated to the Renaissance genius. It is called Michelangelo 550 and is a web-app designed to take visitors on a journey of knowledge that extends from the halls of the museum to the streets of Florence, offering an articulate look at the artist’s work and the context in which it was born. The project is part of the program The Eternal Contemporary. Michelangelo 1475 - 2025, which from March 6 offers events, meetings and initiatives throughout the year aimed at rereading the figure of the Master through an interdisciplinary approach capable of involving music, theater, poetry and visual arts.
The new platform will be available from Sept. 30 and was created with the aim of making the museum experience more accessible and engaging, offering the public innovative tools to deepen their knowledge of Michelangelo’s works. Developed for use on smartphones and usable directly from the browser without the need for downloads, Michelangelo 550 is designed to be intuitive and immediate. Visitors can access it by simply framing the QR codes placed next to the masterpieces housed in the Accademia Gallery. From there, a multimedia narrative opens, consisting of text, audio content and original videos that tell the story of the works, the contexts from which they came and the techniques used to create them.
The platform broadens the view through comparisons with other masters of the 16th century and links to works created by Michelangelo in the city. All content is designed with a narrative and popular slant, to appeal not only to a specialist audience but also to those who are approaching the language of Renaissance art for the first time. One of the most important aspects of Michelangelo 550 is the extension of the experience beyond the museum walls. In fact, the web-app includes a system of geolocated itineraries that invites users to continue their visit to Florentine places related to Michelangelo’s life and work. The route leads to the Medici Chapels, where the New Sacristy is located with the monumental tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici, and to the Bargello National Museum, which houses the Bacchus and the Pitti Tondo. It then continues to the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, designed by Buonarroti himself, and to Palazzo Vecchio, where the Genius of Victory is located.
The itinerary also touches on the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Michelangelo rests in the tomb created by Giorgio Vasari, and the Basilica of Santo Spirito, which houses the wooden crucifix carved by the Master in his youth. The itinerary also includes the Uffizi Galleries and the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, the Boboli Gardens, with plaster casts of the Prigioni in Buontalenti’s Grotto, and theAccademia delle Arti del Disegno. In this way, the web-app becomes an in-depth tool for visiting the Accademia Gallery, and a guide for exploring Florence through the widespread presence of Michelangelo’s works. The project is part of a broader plan to enhance the artistic and cultural heritage, which sees the Accademia Gallery at the center of a new Michelangelo circuit together with the Bargello Museums, under the Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate for Museums. The initiative aims to make the figure of Michelangelo an active interlocutor for contemporary audiences.
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| A web-app narrates Michelangelo between the halls of the Accademia Gallery and the city of Florence |
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