Michelangelo comes back to life and you can chat with him: the artificial intelligence project

In Florence, theOpera di Santa Maria del Fiore brings “back to life” ... the great Michelangelo Buonarroti. Power ofartificial intelligence: the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the New York-based company Querlo - Customized Artificial Intelligence Solutions have in fact created a virtual Michelangelo using this technology.

The project is called MICHELANGELO AI and was created as an educational tool to raise awareness of the great artist’s art, life and thought: the “virtual” Michelangelo is in fact willing to answer questions from the audience, and at the same time he will learn from the conversations while constantly developing his knowledge base. The content of MICHELANGELO AI has been curated by a staff of art historians from the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence led by Timothy Verdon, director of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence.

The Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore commissioned Michelangelo to paint two of his most famous works (the David and the St. Matthew), and it preserves in its museum in Florence one of the three Pietàs created by the artist, namely the Bandini Pietà, which is currently being restored. MICHELANGELO AI therefore also aims to raise awareness of the monuments of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Cathedral, Brunelleschi’s Dome, Giotto’s Bell Tower, the Crypt of Santa Reparata and the Baptistery) and involve people in restoration initiatives, including, in the future, that of the 13th-century mosaics of the Baptistery Dome.

The Michelangelo created by the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and Querlo is a “Florentine” Michelangelo, who looks back on his life and insists on the importance to him of his early experiences in art, thought, and spirituality, all dating back to his formative years in Florence. He mentions Donatello, the artist of the past whom he most admired, Ghiberti and Luca della Robbia, and recalls that his first major public commissions were for the Duomo, where these others had also worked. To get to know him and ask him questions (in English for now), one can go to the Opera del Duomo website or Querlo ’s website and begin to... chat with Michelangelo (it all takes place in written form).

The idea for MICHELANGELO AI was born during this period marked by the Covid-19 pandemic. “Global restrictions,” says Timothy Verdon, “have had a devastating impact, preventing people from being able to visit precious cities like Michelangelo’s Florence. Bringing Michelangelo back to life narrows this gap, allowing virtual visitors to approach one of the great spirits of our civilization, to converse about art and life with him, to discover through him a different balance, at once ancient and, for our contemporaries, new.”

“This is a dream come true,” declares Francesco Rulli, CEO of Querlo LLC. “By harnessing the power of personalized artificial intelligence, we are able to capture the ’spirit’ of Michelangelo, offering the opportunity for everyone to personally interact with this ancient master and to raise awareness of and contribute to the restoration activities of the heritage of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore.”

Michelangelo comes back to life and you can chat with him: the artificial intelligence project

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