Wow! She is back in town! My overall impression: she was much more beautiful than I could ever have imagined.

I'm talking about the Cultural Event of the Year: the exhibition, newly opened here in my RL and AW city (July 19th - Jan. 6th 2009), dedicated to one of the most celebrated bronzes from Etruria, a life-sized statue known as The Minerva of Arezzo .

The goddess is usually collocated in The Archaeological Museum of Florence ( Ghrrr! when are they going to give her back to us?)- but for eight years she had now been under restoration. In one section of the exhibition there is a superb multimedia presentation of the very complex restoration project, in which was used every kind of advanced technology available and multidisciplinary teams of experts.So absolutely interesting, not least considering the ongoing "Wolfie"-debate...
( A suivre- more later...)

I suppose that few of you have been to Florence to see the original bronze, especially if you live in USA, but you might have met with a copy...
Googling around I came across this Press Release. Sorry, Schwarzenegger, you got the OLD girl!
Before the restoration the Minerva was in a really bad shape: the structural wooden elements inside the statue were on the point of collapsing, giving an incorrect inclination of the head and an erroneous pose of the torso, the bronze layer was very corroded and the statue had moreover in the past been extensively 'patched up'. An example: the right arm, missing, had been replaced in the 18th century, while the NEW beauty has-yes- a missing arm.

Take a look at this picture! The proud sindaco on the inauguration day.