David's toe points art historians to origins of Michelangelo's marble

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Barbara McMahon in Rome
Monday August 29, 2005
The Guardian


Scientists have identified the precise origin of the marble block used for Michelangelo's David, and say the discovery will be useful for helping to preserve one of the world's greatest sculptures.
Until now, art historians knew only that the large block came from the Carrara quarries in Tuscany, which still produce many types and qualities of marble.

Analysts have now used three tiny samples, retrieved from the second toe of the left foot of David when the figure was damaged in act of vandalism in 1991, to track down the marble's origin. Not only were they able to determine the exact spot of excavation - the Fantiscritti quarries in Miseglia, the central of three small valleys in Carrara - they also found that Michelangelo's marble is of mediocre quality, filled with microscopic holes, and likely to degrade faster than many other marbles.


"In the field of conservation work, it is becoming more important to have detailed knowledge about the materials and techniques used in works of art," said Donato Attanasio, head of the research team at the Istituto di Struttura della Materia in Rome. "It can help greatly in restoration or conservation work and, in this sense, Carrara marble was considered too vague a specification."

Michelangelo worked on his masterpiece between 1501 and 1504, but the five metre block of marble was actually quarried 40 years before that for the sculptor Agostino di Duccio, who had planned to make a giant figure of a prophet for one of the buttresses of Florence cathedral. The project was abandoned, probably because Di Duccio had no experience of large statuary work, and the marble lay unused for 10 years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,1558303,00.html