More than 45 millimetres of rain fell on Florence in an hour. The Uffizi reported a small leak beneath a skylight. As a precaution, the painting Bacchus was removed and the room temporarily closed. After checks, it reopened the following day.
The sight of water on the display case draws attention to a less visible part of conservation. Protecting a painting means more than working directly on the artwork: it also means monitoring the conditions of the space around it.
Roofs, skylights, windows, building services and protective systems all help shape the conditions in which a collection is kept. In museums housed in historic buildings, the relationship is particularly delicate: caring for the artworks and maintaining the architecture must go hand in hand.
During the same torrential downpour, water also affected some areas of Palazzo Pitti, where parts of the exhibition spaces were temporarily closed. The causes of those leaks had not yet been established with certainty.
In the case of Bacchus, the display case protected the painting, and it was removed as a precaution.
This, too, is preventive conservation: creating and monitoring, over time, the conditions that reduce risks before an artwork is damaged.
