We all should pay a tribute of grate gratitude to the person I am about to introduce to you and to the generous members of the nonprofit American Foundation who has founded and presides Friends in Florence. Using only private funds, Friends of Florence takes care of our extraordinary cultural and artistic patrimony since 1998, using a lot of resources for monumental restoration, being animated by genuine civic spirit. Every year twenty thousand euro are given to the Accademia Gallery for the maintenance of David and the Prisoners of Michelangelo; it was Friends in Florence that were the leading agents to participate in the restoration of the Uffizi Tribuna, the Crucifix of Giambologna from the SS. Annunziata Chapel, in important interventions in the churches of S. Spirito, SS. Annunziata, S. Croce, in Florence’s museums, in the diagnostic campaign realized by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure regarding the disappeared fresco of Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari.
