Florence will host the most important museum on Michelangelo in the world thanks to the union between the Accademia Gallery and the Bargello Museums, the culture ministry's director general for museums Massimo Osanna said on Monday on the sidelines of the presentation of the project, 'The eternal contemporary. Michelangelo 1475-2025,' according to ANSA.
The initiative is being promoted on the 550th anniversary of the Renaissance artist's birth.
"The most important thing of this 2025 dedicated to Michelangelo, and it is wonderful that it's happening this year, is the union between the Academy and the Bargello", he said.
He explained that the two museums will merge to create itineraries enabling visitors to tour the Accademia, then visit the Medici Chapels and the Bargello, as well as the "secret room" of the Renaissance genius, a small area located beneath the Medici Chapels in Florence.
The room is thought to have served as Michelangelo's hideout briefly in 1530 and it was regularly opened to the public only last year.
The alleged hideout was discovered in 1975 after the then director of the Medici Chapels museum in the Basilica of San Lorenzo instructed a restorer to carry out cleaning tests in a narrow corridor beneath an apse.
Speaking about the initiative on Monday, Osanna said museums must become increasingly "dynamic", offering local communities as well as tourists "cultural programs of great depth" not only promoting "knowledge but also enjoyment and emotion, because art must continue to thrill" the public.
