Simonetta Brandolini D’Adda with AWA Vice Chair Bob Hesse
Simonetta Brandolini D’Adda
| SHARE |  |  |
2012 Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici Awardee In 1998, Countess Simonetta Brandolini D’Adda founded the non-profit US foundation Friends of Florence and has since worked tirelessly to preserve and uphold the city’s artistic heritage. Friends of Florence first gained world-wide acclaim by restoring the twenty-two major paintings flanking Michelangelo’s David in the Galleria dell' Accademia. It later funded all diagnostic analyses needed for the restoration of the statute itself, in time for its 500-year anniversary. Friends of Florence has funded the entire restoration of Uffizi’s Tribuna as well as its Niobe Room in the Uffizi Gallery, and more recently, supported the restoration of the Gates of Paradise by Ghiberti.